The ceremony marks the first anniversary of the Quebec daycare bus crash

Two white balloons were released into the sky today to mark the one-year anniversary of a bus crash in front of a Montreal-area kindergarten, killing two young children and injuring six others.

Kindergarten staff and families gathered in a park near Kindergarten Ste-Rose in Laval when the city bus that became the scene of the tragedy veered off the street and down the kindergarten's driveway during its morning drop-off.

Father-of-two Andre Beaudoin, who helped pull the children out from under the bus on the morning of the crash, said he would help the victims' families with their grieving process.

She said she still remembers looking up on the morning of February 8, 2023, as she was unbuckling her son's seat belt, and saw a bus pass her in the parking lot.

Five-year-old Maeva David and four-year-old Jacob Gauthier died in the crash, and six other children were hospitalized.

The kindergarten asked people not to leave flowers or stuffed animals outside the building, but to donate to the foundations of the hospitals that treated the victims, the Cite de la Santé in Laval and the Sainte-Justine Children's Hospital in Montreal.

Pierre Neu Saint-Amand, a former city bus driver, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, as well as seven other charges, including attempted murder and aggravated assault.

A preliminary hearing is set for March, and New St. Amand's attorney said he plans to argue that the 52-year-old lacked the criminal intent necessary for first-degree murder.

— This Canadian Press report was first published on February 8, 2024.