COURT OF APPEAL FOR ONTARIO

CITATION: Grant (Re), 2020 ONCA 707

DATE: 20201104

DOCKET: C67891

Fairburn A.C.J.O., Jamal and Coroza JJ.A.

IN THE MATTER OF: NATHAN GRANT

AN APPEAL UNDER PART XX.1 OF THE CODE

Meaghan McMahon, for the appellant

Manasvin Goswami, for the respondent, Her Majesty the Queen

Marie-Pierre T. Pilon, for the Person-in-Charge of The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre

Heard and released orally: October 30, 2020 by video conference

On appeal against the disposition of the Ontario Review Board dated, November 18, 2019.

REASONS FOR DECISION

[1] This is an appeal from the appellant’s latest Ontario Review Board disposition, dated November 18, 2019. The appellant’s request for an absolute discharge was dismissed. Instead, the Board continued the same disposition that had been previously imposed, one of a conditional discharge, but with less stringent conditions. The appellant’s next Review Board hearing is scheduled for about three weeks from now.

[2] The appellant raises two grounds of appeal.

[3] First, the appellant says that the Board’s reasons suffer from a misapprehension of evidence. In its reasons, the Board referred to the fact that during the four nights that the appellant had spent at his mother’s home in the previous year, while under a conditional discharge, he had not been compliant with his medication. While we agree with the appellant that the record does not support this factual statement, the misapprehension of evidence does not rise to a material level.

[4] Among other things, it does not appear that the Board took this evidentiary mistake into account in the analysis portion of its reasons. As well, the record is clear that the appellant has not been compliant with his medications in the past, and that his psychiatrist was of the opinion that he would not be medication compliant if granted an absolute discharge.

[5] Second, the appellant says that the conditional discharge imposed in this case rises to the level of an unreasonable disposition. We do not agree.

[6] We start by noting the considerable deference owed to the expert Board’s decision in determining whether to grant or deny an absolute discharge. As in Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v. Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65, 441 D.L.R. (4th) 1, at para. 85, the Board’s reasoning process and outcome in this case reflects an internally coherent and rational chain of analysis and is justified in relation to the facts and the law.

[7] In our view, the disposition cannot be said to be unreasonable. The determination that a conditional discharge should be imposed was based upon, among other things, the appellant’s history involving the lack of insight into his illness, his past history involving substance abuse, and the likelihood that this abuse will continue, the gravity of harm arising from the index offence and the likelihood of serious harm occurring in the future, particularly arising from the appellant’s lack of insight into his own condition.

[8] The appeal is dismissed.

“Fairburn A.C.J.O.”

“M. Jamal J.A.”

“S. Coroza J.A.”