[8] Matthew Brown, a 26-year-old student of Mount Royal University, consumed six or seven mixed drinks, a few beers, and less than one-and-a-half grams of magic mushrooms while at a party in Calgary.

Brown would go on to describe at trial how he started feeling "wonky" at around 1:30 AM the following day, and began losing his grip on reality.[2]: para.

Brown eventually removed his clothing and left the house at around 3:45 AM in an agitated state, running naked in bare feet through the cold winter night.

At trial Brown tried to argue he was innocent because he lacked the requisite mens rea for the crime since he was in a state of automatism as a result of ingesting the magic mushrooms.

Expert evidence adduced at the trial confirmed that he was indeed in a state of delirium at the time of the offences, and that a reaction from ingesting the mushrooms was the clear causative factor for the episode.

[9] The Alberta Court of Appeal reversed Dewit's decision and declared section 33.1 to be constitutional, also setting aide's Brown's acquittal.

Judge Frans Slatter wrote that the Court in Daviault did not foreclose Parliament from enacting legislation to close the legislative "gap" which allowed some offenders to avoid criminal liability if they were extremely intoxicated, holding that section 33.1 criminalized the ingestion of dangerous substances that could trigger automatism.

Distinguishing the case from Daviault, where the court held that the infringements could not be justified for intoxication akin to automatism, she placed emphasis on the common law origin of the Leary rule.

Finally, he stressed that neither the Court's decision in Daviault or its decision now in Brown meant that people who commit crimes while under a state of extreme intoxication had to remain out of the reach of criminal law, holding that there were constitutionally sound mechanisms through which Parliament could achieve its goal of holding those people accountable.[2]: para.

Section 33.1, Kasirer reasoned, failed at both the minimal impairment and final balancing stage of the test.[2]: para.

He first acknowledged that Parliament's objectives of holding people who commit violent offences while in a state of extreme intoxication accountable, and protecting victims of intoxication-linked violence were substantial and pressing.[2]: para.

He also found that withholding the defence of automatism for the enumerated crimes was rationally connected to the section's purpose.[2]: para.

Under such a provision the Crown would have to prove that the automatism and resulting violence was reasonably foreseeable to the accused when they ingested the substance.[2]: para.

Kasirer noted that the provision seriously trampled on basic norms of the criminal justice system designed to protect the innocent.

It had no regard for the voluntariness of the accused's conduct, it had no criterion for objective foreseeability, so people could theoretically be charged for unforeseeable automatism that results from legal or prescribed substances, and by substituting intent to get intoxicated with the intent to commit the predicate offence, it could lead to disproportionate punishments that don't reflect the accused's moral blameworthiness.[2]: para.

Kat Owens, project director at the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, said she was relieved that the Court had set a high bar for the defence and clarified that normal cases of intoxication would not suffice.

[4][7][10] The ruling received a more sympathetic reception from Dennis Baker, associate professor of political science, and columnist Colby Cosh.

And Cosh noted the "sacred and ancient" role of the requirement for mens rea in Canada's justice system.

The bill would follow one of the alternatives mentioned by the Supreme Court in its ruling, and amend section 33.1 to provide for a real fault requirement, namely negligence.

The Crown would need to prove that the accused acted negligently in consuming the intoxicating substance as an essential element of an offence covered by the section, having regard to the objective foreseeability of risk that comes with its ingestion, among other factors.[2]: para.