Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed a couple of Canadian criminal charges that are unfamiliar to me.
Ryan Reynolds was hit by a car, and the driver may be charged with “intimidation”.
Jian Ghomeshi is charged with one count of “choking”.
Why don’t these both just fall under the category of assault and/or battery? Is it because these are considered to be more serious than the average assault?
With regard to choking/strangulation in the US and why in many states it’s considered more serious than assault/battery.
It’s seen as being a warning sign of the severity of domestic violence increasing. Choking frequently is treated as more severe than say a punch in the face in much of the US and in some cases is a felony. We’re not really all that different than our northern neighbors in this.
Left off thelink and missed the edit window
Intimidation, I believe, is using something as a weapon that’s not strictly defined as a weapon. Like a car. While there are also other charges that will cover if I hit you with the car, none will apply if I just chase you down the street, without hitting you. Same with a chainsaw, what if I don’t cut you just terrorize you with one?
The intimidation offence is more than just an assault. It is actions which are taken in an attempt to force the target to do something, or to refrain from doing something. Some of the ways intimidation can be done would be assaults, but others (persistently following the target, for example), would not be assaults. So it’s an offence that overlaps with assault, but is meant to criminalise a specific type of conduct that is different in kind from assault. See the definition of intimidation here: Criminal Code, s. 423.
The choking offence is also more than just an assault. The offence is actually that of trying to overcome the victim’s resistance to the commission of an indictable offence. Choking is one way that offence can be committed. Another way is by plying the individual with drugs. It’s quite a serious offence, being indictable only, and carrying a life sentence. Choking someone without trying to overcome their resistance to the commission of an indictable offence would not come within the definition of the choking offence: Criminal Code, s. 246(a).
See this CBC article: The Jian Ghomeshi case: What is the ‘overcome resistance’ charge?
No, this is not correct. The offence of assault includes threats to apply force to the victim. See the Criminal Code, s. 265(1)(b):
The common law drew a distinction between threatening to apply force to another (assault) and actually applying force (battery). The Criminal Code has consolidated them as different ways to commit the statutory offence of assault.
Thanks, that was very informative.
You’re welcome. Pleased to be of service. 
How do the courts prove (for example) the intent of a person persistently following another (which seems to be the defining element of the offense; doing so to persuade the target from doing/not doing something)? The definition also gives an exception (at least for sitting outside someones house or work); that being doing it for the purposes of gathering or comminucating information.
Example: A person spots their ex-partner driving, follows them home, and waits down the block for half an hour to see if anyone else comes and goes from the house… then they just leave with no contact at all; they just want to know where that person lives now and with who.
That other person spots them, panics, and calls the police claiming person A is intimidating them. The cops question Person A but they get no answers at all as to why the following/waiting. Can they do anything or will they need some kind of evidence (in addition to the “victim” being concerned) that the follower was trying to persuade the person to do/not do something? You’d think there would have to be actual evidence of something going on, otherwise you could abuse the system to have any random person who annoys you and takes the same route to the store you take charged.