Dr. Danièle Bélanger

The court ruled on whether the defences of self-defence and provocation should be put to the jury in a case where two sisters admitted to killing their elderly mother.

The accused claimed they acted in self-defence based on a lifetime of physical and verbal abuse, which escalated in the week preceding the killing.

The court found an air of reality to the self-defence defence for both accused, considering the chronic abuse, the accused's cultural background, their mental health conditions, and the modified objective test applicable to self-defence.

The court rejected the provocation defence due to insufficient specificity regarding the triggering act and the lack of evidence that the accused acted "on the sudden."

This is a ruling on the admissibility of defence expert opinion evidence in a criminal trial involving two sisters charged with killing their mother.

The defence sought to call Dr. Danièle Bélanger, an expert in Vietnamese society, gender, family, and migration, to provide cultural context evidence.

The Crown opposed the admission of this evidence.

The trial judge conducted a voir dire and ruled that the expert evidence was admissible, finding that it met all threshold requirements under the Mohan framework and that the probative value outweighed any prejudicial effects.

The evidence was found to be logically relevant to issues of credibility, motive, intent, and self-defence, and necessary to assist the jury in understanding the accused's state of mind and the cultural context in which they operated.