Ottawa to review possible miscarriage of justice in 1994 murder conviction in Quebec

Ottawa says there are reasonable grounds to believe a miscarriage of justice occurred in the case of a Quebec man who was convicted of four murders in 1994.

MONTREAL — The federal government says there are reasonable grounds to believe a miscarriage of justice occurred in the case of a Quebec man who was convicted of four murders in 1994.

On Thursday, the Justice Department’s criminal conviction review group confirmed it will investigate the case of Daniel Jolivet, who has been imprisoned for 33 years.

A lawyer for Jolivet, 68, submitted a formal application earlier this week to federal Justice Minister Sean Fraser, asking him to review Jolivet’s conviction and order a new trial in the case. The request was made after the Quebec Crown prosecutor’s office concluded in June that Jolivet may not have received a fair trial.

“After completing a preliminary assessment of Mr. Daniel Jolivet’s application for review, we find that there may be reasonable grounds to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred,” the federal review group wrote Thursday in a letter to Jolivet’s lawyer, Nicholas St-Jacques of Projet Innocence Québec.

The decision to review the case means that Jolivet can now apply for bail, St-Jacques said in an interview Friday. “It gave him hope,” he said. “Now there is a real chance that he gets out and that he could do something else with his life other than just thinking about his case and trying to get out of prison.”

Jolivet was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder in the November 1992 shooting deaths of two men and two women in Brossard, Que.

Evidence at trial hinged largely on the testimony of an informant, who said Jolivet had confessed to killing the four as part of a settling of scores related to drugs and stolen merchandise.

Jolivet succeeded in having the verdict overturned on appeal, but it was reinstated by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2000.

St-Jacques said the case against his client raises many red flags, including doubts over the honesty of the informant. There is also a large amount of evidence that was never turned over to the defence, he said.

Jolivet, who has been imprisoned since his arrest in late 1992, has always maintained his innocence. St-Jacques said in a previous interview that his client has acknowledged committing many crimes, but has consistently said he never murdered anyone — even when admitting to doing so could have helped him get parole.

St-Jacques said Jolivet has been calling for a review of his conviction for the last 20 years, but the federal review group has refused four times to look at the case.

In June, however, the Quebec Crown prosecutor’s office concluded there was reason to believe the defence didn’t receive all the evidence needed to defend him at trial. “In short, we are of the opinion that there are reasonable grounds to conclude that Mr. Jolivet likely did not receive a fair and reasonable trial,” the office said in a letter to St-Jacques.

St-Jacques has been urging Fraser to review the case since then. He said the investigation now underway could take up to two years, at which point the justice minister could order a new trial, send the case back to the appeal court, or reject the application.

He said he will apply for bail next week in Quebec Superior Court.

Earlier this week, the Parole Board of Canada refused a parole application for Jolivet, finding that his release would present “an unacceptable risk to society.”

The board noted that Jolivet has previously planned escape attempts and has been found with contraband, though his behaviour has improved in recent years. “Your file indicates that your impulsiveness, poor emotional management, difficulty considering the consequences of your actions, and emotional deficiencies are factors that affect your ability to exercise self-control,” the decision reads.

The parole board said that Jolivet’s most recent psychological risk assessment, conducted in October 2023, identified an anti-social personality disorder and found he presented a “moderate” level of risk.

The board said its decision to deny parole was not based on Jolivet’s failure to take responsibility for the crimes, but it could not presume the outcome of a “hypothetical judicial review” of his case.

St-Jacques said the parole decision merely “reinforces the relevancy” of the conviction review.

He said officers woke Jolivet in his cell Friday morning so St-Jacques could give him the news by telephone. Jolivet began to cry upon hearing about the federal review, and is going through “the full range of emotions,” St-Jacques said.

“At one point I think that you just don’t believe you’re going to get that call,” he said. “It has been so many years.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2025.

— With files from Morgan Lowrie

Maura Forrest, The Canadian Press