Quebec City mosque shooter asks court for transfer to medium-security prison

MONTREAL — Quebec City mosque shooter Alexandre Bissonnette has asked to be transferred from a maximum- to a medium-security prison, citing concerns over his safety and his mental health.

Bissonnette said in a request filed by his lawyer at the Montreal courthouse in April that his detention conditions are unlawful and constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

Bissonnette is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty to six counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted murder for gunning down worshippers in a Quebec City mosque in January 2017.

Lawyer Sylvie Bordelais says Bissonnette is imprisoned at the Port-Cartier maximum-security prison on Quebec’s North Shore, despite assessments that concluded he could be housed in a medium-security facility instead.

The court document says Bissonnette’s mental health is fragile and that it’s worsened by being far from his parents and with violent inmates who might want to kill him.

“Forcing an individual with fragile mental health to live in a place where some inmates have nothing to lose and may want to make a name for themselves by murdering him is not part of the mandate given to the Correctional Service,” Bordelais wrote.

She noted the recent assassination of another “notorious detainee” at Port-Cartier, in a likely reference to serial killer Robert Pickton, who was murdered there by a fellow inmate in May 2024.

Under Canadian law, an inmate must be detained under the least restrictive conditions possible, while still ensuring safety.

Bissonnette’s lawyer wrote that he was initially held in a mental health facility, but was transferred to Port-Cartier in eastern Quebec in 2023.

That’s despite a psychological risk assessment from 2021 recommending medium-security incarceration, Bordelais said. The psychologist reiterated that finding in 2025, as did his care team earlier this year, the legal filing says.

“The change of environment was very difficult for him, notably with the mediatization of his offence, which led to intimidation and violence from other detainees,” reads an excerpt from the psychological assessment reproduced in the court document.

The court document states that Bissonnette has participated in his correctional plan, including a restorative justice process, and has not used violence “despite the violence he experienced and the threats against him.”

The directors of the prison denied Bissonnette’s request for a transfer in March. Bordelais said the prison authorities cited Bissonnette’s fragile mental health and self-harm behaviours to justify keeping him “in an environment where he is far from his loved ones, surrounded by very violent detainees.”

Bordelais said the authorities also expressed concern over the “outcry that a transfer outside of Port-Cartier would provoke.”

On its website, Correctional Service Canada says maximum-security prisons are designed to detain the most dangerous convicts, where their “movement, association and privileges are very restricted.” In medium-security prisons, inmates’ privileges are “moderately restricted,” and they are places that prepare convicts for a minimum security institution.

In an email, the Correctional Service of Canada said the reclassification of an inmate’s security level is based on a “comprehensive assessment process” that includes the detainee’s progress, their likelihood of escape and risk they pose to the public.

“While evidence-based tools form part of this process, they represent only one component of a broader evaluation,” the department said in the email. “These tools are used in conjunction with the professional judgment of specialized staff, who consider a range of behavioural, clinical, and contextual factors that may affect an offender’s safe adaptation and management within an institution.”

Bordelais filed a habeas corpus petition in Quebec Superior Court that cites the prison’s top official and Canada’s attorney general.

“By their treatment of the applicant, the respondents are violating the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, by not guaranteeing his life and his security and by subjecting him to cruel and unusual treatment,” Bordelais wrote. “It’s important that this court intervene to stop the illegal detention of the applicant who is being held in an environment that is more secure than he requires.”

The file has since been transferred to Quebec City, where it will be heard at a later date.

Bissonnette previously mounted a successful legal challenge of his sentence, after a judge declared him ineligible for parole before serving 40 years in prison.

In response, the Supreme Court struck down a Criminal Code provision that had allowed judges to impose stacked, or consecutive, life sentences and parole ineligibility periods on multiple murderers.

The 2022 decision meant that Bissonnette and other Canadian multiple murderers are allowed to seek parole after 25 years, though there’s no guarantee it will be granted.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2026.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press