What’s The Legal Difference Between Self Defence and Assault in Canada?

So, you’re at your home, you’re peacefully watching your television, and someone kicks in your door. You grab a baseball bat and you hit them to defend yourself, and whoa, the police wind up charging you with assault. How is that fair? We’re going to talk about the difference between self-defense and the difference between self-defense and assault in Canada. So, let’s break it down. What is assault? Well, Assault is defined under Section 265 of the Criminal Code.

That’s where someone does an intentional application of force, like a push, a shove, a punch, however, hitting with a bat, whatever, without the consent of the other person. So that person, if they’re not acting in self-defense, could be charged with an assault. That’s the definition an intentional application of force without consent.

Section 34 of the Criminal Code, on the other hand, defines self-defense. This is a situation where someone is assaulting you or threatening to assault you, and you perceive the threat is imminent, and you act reasonably in the circumstances, with some degree of proportionate force as well.

To defend yourself, you have to act reasonably in the circumstances. And there’s sometimes a very thin line between whether you assault a person or whether you were acting as self-defense, and in that situation, it’s often a person who uses excessive force to defend themselves, and I’m going to give you some examples.

Okay, so in the situation, for example, on the home invasion, someone kicks in your door and is coming at you, and you pick up a baseball bat to stop their attacking. You hit them once, and it subdues them. That’s clearly self-defense. I mean, you still might get charged. I’ve seen people unfortunately get charged stupidly by the police in those situations, I might add, but they likely and hopefully would win their case, because that’s clearly defending yourself.

On the other hand, if someone breaks in your home, kicks in your door, and you subdue them with the bat, with a couple of hits, and they’re down and out and unconscious, and you keep hitting them and pulverize them. That’s clearly excessive force. It’s not reasonable force in the circumstances.

Take a bar fight, for example. You’re attacked by someone. They punch you, and you immediately punch them back twice to put them down and get out of there. Clearly self-defense. You weren’t assaulting them. You were acting with reasonable, proportional force. But the whole point is you can’t then start beating them into submission after that, after they’re completely down and out, so you would get charged with assault in that scenario.

Another situation, if someone’s simply being rude to you in your face, but you’re not perceiving a threat, you decide to punch them because they’re the biggest idiot in the world. Again, you are assaulting because you’re doing an intentional application of force without the consent. But there’s a fine line between these two things, and the courts grapple with it, the police grapple with it. On home invasions, we have a lot of charges, unfortunately, and there’s a lot of online commentary, and I’ll be talking about this in other videos as well, about home invasions.

But you know, you have to act reasonably in the circumstances, but that’s a difficult situation. When your life is under threat. You’re not going through the criminal code and thinking about proportional force, a nicely blow, how big is he? There are all these factors in the Criminal Code. How do you process that information? I will say to you, look, defend yourself. First of all, try to get the heck out there if you can.

But if you’re going to act in self-defense, try and act reasonably in the circumstances so you can justify your actions once the person’s subdued and down out, get the heck out of there. Call the police as an example, unfortunately, there’s been a lot of people charged in Canada, I think, who should not have been charged for these home invasions, because in the middle of the night I fear for my life. I see someone in the dark, and I hit them four times with a bat. Well, what am I supposed to do? So, there you have it. It’s a thin line. Sometimes innocent citizens wind up getting charged, and I just wanted to go through the difference between self-defense and actual assault with you today. Stay safe, stay informed and know your rights.