Court of Appeal for Ontario

Date: 2024-07-10 Docket: COA-23-CR-1353

MacPherson, Dawe and Madsen JJ.A.

In the Matter of: Joanne Woods An Appeal Under Part XX.1 of the Code

Counsel: Anita Szigeti, for the appellant Eunwoo Lee, for the respondent Attorney General of Ontario Leisha Senko for the respondent Person in Charge of Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Heard: July 5, 2024

On appeal from the disposition of the Ontario Review Board dated, November 15, 2023, with reasons dated December 12, 2023.

Reasons for Decision

[1] On May 9, 2012, the appellant, Joanne Woods, was found not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder on charges of uttering a threat to cause death or bodily harm and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.

[2] The facts giving rise to this verdict pertained to the appellant uttering “I’m going to kill someone” while riding on a bus in Toronto. The driver stopped the bus and observed the appellant looking through her bag. She then said “I have a knife”. The bus driver opened the door and the other passengers exited. The driver observed the appellant removing an object from her bag that appeared to be a knife. The appellant concealed it and ran off. Police were called and they found the appellant a short distance away from the bus. She did possess a knife.

[3] Following a hearing on December 15, 2023, a unanimous five person panel of the Ontario Review Board (the “Board”) determined that the appellant remained a significant threat to public safety and upheld the current Detention Order without changes. The Board concluded:

Weighing all the evidence, the Board can only conclude that Ms. Woods at this point in time is a significant threat to the safety of the public. No order less than detention can be made. This order can provide for proper community housing and other privileges, but any form of discharge is unrealistic.

[4] The appellant advances two arguments on the appeal.

[5] First, the appellant contends that the evidence before the Board did not reasonably support a finding of significant threat under the test set out in the leading case Winko v. British Columbia (Forensic Psychiatric Institute), [1999] 2 S.C.R. 625.

[6] We do not accept this submission. The Board cited and explicitly applied Winko. The Board noted that a “significant threat” means “a risk of serious physical or psychological harm to members of the public” which is “not minimal or a mere annoyance”. It further explained that, as held in Winko, in this context a risk “must be real and objectively supportable ….”

[7] The Board then carefully and comprehensively reviewed the evidence and concluded:

Ms. Woods is a significant threat to the safety of the public. She has a significant mental illness, and has had this for many years. She has a significant substance abuse problem, also of long standing. She has in the past shown that she will decompensate, she will not conform to a medication regime, and when she does not, she can become threatening.

Importantly, she was sufficiently aggressive and threatening toward her attending psychiatrist and a nurse that her care had to be re-assigned. This took place in 2022, and is reasonably contemporary.

This all points to a level of danger in the community. When one adds to this the use of illicit substances, failure to conform to medication regimens, and the resultant aggression and paranoia engendered, Ms. Woods represents a threat to the safety of the public, and a threat that is significant. [Emphasis added].

[8] We can find no fault with this analysis.

[9] Second, the appellant submits that the Board erred by not granting the appellant a conditional discharge, as it had done on a previous occasion during her 12 year history under the Board’s jurisdiction.

[10] We are not persuaded by this submission. Again, the Board dealt comprehensively and fairly with this submission:

This Board has given careful consideration to whether a Conditional Discharge can alleviate the threat posed in this situation. We are compelled to conclude that it cannot.

Ms. Woods was living under a Conditional Discharge for some time. This is positive for her and may show that under proper circumstances she would be entitled to a Conditional Discharge. But the Board must also weigh that after she was granted a Conditional Discharge previously, she returned to the use of illicit substances. She missed appointments with care givers. She was medication non-complaint. She decompensated. Her symptoms of psychosis returned.

And when this happened, she again became aggressive. As noted above, she was threatening toward her care givers, Dr. Ray and Nurse Moreau. When re-admitted in December of 2022, she presented as agitated, hostile, and overtly psychotic, with heightened intensity of paranoid delusions. She was disorganized and threatening in manner towards staff members.

Her level of aggression, this Board holds, was well beyond a person who was frustrated and “blowing off steam”. If that was the case, she would not meet the threshold of significant threat. But she was well beyond that.

[11] We can find no fault with the Board’s analysis.

[12] The appeal is dismissed.

“J.C. MacPherson J.A.” “J. Dawe J.A.” “L. Madsen J.A.”