[1] At around 8:30 am EST, witnesses first heard a bus operated by driver Pierre Ny St-Amand rev its engine.
The bus turned sharply into the daycare driveway, and headed at 30 or 40 kilometers per hour straight to the part of the building where four- and five-year-olds gather.
Witnesses and parents quickly subdued the man, while others rushed into the building to pull out injured children as chunks of the ceiling fell to the floor.
Panicked parents that showed up at the blocked-off crash site were directed towards the school and had to wait two hours as identities were confirmed.
[13] The following morning, Quebec Premier François Legault and leaders of provincial opposition parties laid flowers and expressed condolences at the scene.
A moment of silence was observed at the provincial legislature in Quebec City and at the Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa.
[9] In the evening, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Laval mayor Stéphane Boyer paid their respects at the vigil with dozens of people gathered in front of the church.
[14][15] On February 15, bus drivers in Laval and Montreal paused operations for a moment of silence to reflect and to pay their respects one week after the crash.
[23] The City of Laval suspended bus service on the dead-end street in front of the daycare and scheduled a return for June 10, 2023.
The city delayed the opening of the bus route until September at the request of parents worried that the return of busses could aggravate traumatized children.
[27] On the anniversary of the incident, families of the victims gathered in a park near the daycare and released balloons to remember their loved ones.
Born in Cambodia, he arrived in Canada in 1983 in the aftermath of the Cambodian genocide and was adopted as an orphan by a Québécois family originally from New Brunswick.
In the evening, St-Amand appeared before a judge from his hospital bed via videoconference under police supervision, refusing to speak.
[33] On 17 February, Quebec Superior Court Justice Carol Richer ordered another psychiatric evaluation by the Philippe-Pinel institute to see if the accused could understand the proceedings and was fit to stand trial.
St-Amand appeared disheveled at the Laval courthouse, accompanied by four special constables who held down his arms during proceedings.
His defence lawyer, Julien Lespérance Hudon, claimed that he was only occasionally able to speak with his client as he would lapse into an incommunicative state.
[40][41] The accused appeared by video conference from the Philippe-Pinel Psychiatric Institute where he remained in custody for treatment and assessement while awaiting trial.
Counsel commented that it hoped to make its case for avoiding a trial at a weeklong preliminary hearing in March or April 2024.
The prosecutor said that they would call several civilian witnesses, psychiatrists and psychologists to testify on issues of criminal responsibility, plus family members of the accused.