Dominique Henri Roy

The Ontario Review Board held an annual review hearing for an accused previously found not criminally responsible for violent offences including assault with a weapon.

The accused, diagnosed with schizophrenia and cannabis use disorder, had been living in the community on a conditional discharge.

The hospital and parties recommended continuing the conditional discharge with reduced reporting and the removal of the urine drug screen (UDS) requirement.

The Board found the accused continues to pose a significant threat to public safety due to ongoing ambivalence toward medication and lack of insight into the risks of cannabis use.

The Board ordered a continued conditional discharge, reducing reporting frequency to monthly but maintaining the random UDS testing requirement to monitor abstinence.

The accused was charged with sexual assault and sexual touching of two young sisters (ages 6-10 and 3-4 at the time of the alleged incidents) between 2015 and 2018.

The Crown sought to admit similar fact evidence regarding the testimony of both complainants.

The court rejected the similar fact evidence application due to concerns about unconscious collusion between the sisters, finding that the Crown failed to rebut collusion on a balance of probabilities.

At trial, the court found both complainants credible but unreliable due to significant inconsistencies in their testimony, recovered memories through flashbacks and dreams, and lack of independent corroborating evidence.

The court acquitted the accused on all counts, finding a reasonable doubt existed regarding guilt.

This appeal concerned whether Quebec's farm income stabilization program is a contract and how compensation-linkage decisions under section 88(3) must be interpreted.

The Court held the program is an innominate administrative contract, not a contract of insurance, and interpreted the text and structure as granting discretion over collective linkage.

Applying contractual good-faith and fairness principles, the majority found the respondent's collective methodology lawful in the circumstances.

The dissent would have allowed the appeal in part, concluding the linkage approach breached contractual limits by attributing notional amounts disconnected from participants' actual entitlements.