Markham Threats With a Weapon Lawyer

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“Threats with a weapon” is what a police blotter and a Google search call it, but no section of the Criminal Code carries that name. What actually lands on a York Region charge sheet depends on four questions: were there words, was there an object, was the object a firearm, and was it pointed. Each answer changes the maximum sentence, the bail conditions and the way out. If you are reading this after a charge in Markham, the fastest thing we can do is tell you which count you are actually facing, because the count decides almost everything that follows. Our Markham uttering threats page covers the words on their own; this page maps what changes the moment a weapon enters the picture, and how those charges connect to the wider Markham assault offences we defend.

Reviewed by Fadi Matthew Kazandji, Founding Partner, Kazandji Law · Serving Markham & York Region

Four questions that decide the charge

Almost every threats-with-a-weapon file we see in Markham started as one heated moment. A driveway argument, a breakup that went sideways, a confrontation at work or on the road. What separates a five-year charge from a fourteen-year charge is not how frightening it felt at the time. It is a short list of factual questions the police and the Crown work through, and the answers point to different sections of the Code.

Here is the matrix we walk clients through on the first call. Read down the rows: the more of them your situation touches, the more counts you may face from a single incident.

You will notice that one event can appear in several rows at once. That is not a mistake, and it is not the police piling on. It follows from how the Code defines a weapon, which is the single most important idea on this page.

Why one object multiplies the counts

Section 2 of the Criminal Code defines a weapon in two branches. The first is the obvious one: any thing used, designed or intended to cause death or injury. The second branch is the one that surprises people. A thing is also a weapon when it is used or intended for the purpose of threatening or intimidating a person. Read that again, because it does real work. Under the second branch the object does not have to be capable of hurting anyone at all. Purpose is enough. A realistic-looking replica, an unloaded rifle, a phone held like a knife in the dark, a garden tool waved to frighten: each can be a weapon because of why it was held, not what it could do.

The practical result is that a great many threats-with-a-weapon informations arrive with two or three counts stacked together. That looks alarming on paper. It also creates negotiating room, because counts that rest on the same moment often rise and fall together, and a Crown who agrees the object was never really a weapon may drop the weapon counts entirely and leave a single threats charge that is far easier to resolve.

Scenario one: a threat while holding something

Start with the most common version. Something was said, and the person happened to be holding an object, but nothing was swung and no gun was pointed. The charge that usually results is uttering threats under s. 264.1, a hybrid offence carrying up to five years for a threat of death or bodily harm. The object in the hand is not an element of that offence. It is context, and context cuts both ways.

The Supreme Court set the test in R. v. McRae, 2013 SCC 68. The act itself is judged objectively: would a reasonable person, aware of all the circumstances, understand the words as a threat? The person who received them does not need to have been frightened, and does not even need to have heard them, for the offence to be complete. The fault side is subjective: the Crown must prove the words were meant to intimidate, or meant to be taken seriously. It does not have to prove any intent to actually carry the threat out. A weapon in the hand feeds the objective side, because it can make ordinary words read as a genuine threat. But hyperbole, a heated blow-off in a context everyone understood as venting, or an ambiguous phrase the Crown is straining to read darkly, all live on the same objective question, and that is where these files are contested.

We keep this section short on purpose, because our Markham uttering threats page covers the words-only charge in full, including the domestic context, peace bonds and how release conditions get varied. If your file is really about what was said, start there. If an object changed the picture, keep reading.

Scenario two: the object you raised

Now the object moves. A bottle gets picked up mid-argument, a wrench is raised, a knife is drawn but never used. The file shifts into assault with a weapon under s. 267(1)(a), a hybrid offence with a ten-year maximum. It gets there through the definition of assault itself. Section 265(1)(b) says an assault includes attempting or threatening, by an act or a gesture, to apply force to another person, where the person has, or causes the other to believe on reasonable grounds that they have, the present ability to do it. Raise an object in a way that fits that definition and you have committed an assault, contact or no contact. Do it with a weapon or an imitation, and it is s. 267(1)(a).

That is the crucial difference between this scenario and scenario one. Uttering threats is about communicated words. Assault with a weapon is about a physical act of menace with present ability. The two often travel together, because a raised object usually comes with something said, and it is entirely normal to see both a s. 264.1 count and a s. 267(1)(a) count from one moment. The internal anatomy of the weapon charge, the difference between carrying, using and threatening to use, lives on our Markham assault with a weapon page, and where a physical confrontation is the heart of your file that page goes deeper. What matters here is the boundary line: the moment an object is raised with present ability, you have crossed from a words case into a weapon-assault case, and the maximum doubles.

Scenario three: pointing a firearm (s. 87)

This is the scenario this page owns, because it is precise and often misunderstood. Section 87 makes it an offence to point a firearm at another person, whether the firearm is loaded or unloaded, without lawful excuse. It is hybrid, with a five-year maximum on indictment. Read the statute slowly and two things stand out.

First, loaded or unloaded makes no difference. Clients often assume that an empty gun, or a gun they knew could not fire, must be a lesser matter. Section 87 forecloses that argument directly. The act is the pointing, and the state of the chamber is beside the point. Second, the offence turns on lawful excuse. There are situations the law recognizes as excuses, and the argument space around them is real, but it is fact-specific and we frame it generally rather than promising an outcome: what the firearm was, what was actually done with it, what the person believed and why, and whether the conduct fits any recognized justification. We do not cite case law on lawful excuse on this page, because the answer depends entirely on the file in front of us.

Two further points shape a pointing file. A firearm allegation changes the diversion picture completely, because Ontario Crown policy treats any offence involving a firearm as ineligible for community justice programs. And a firearm reshapes bail: the conditions become tighter, surrender and no-weapons terms are standard, and where the Crown alleges certain firearm circumstances the onus can shift. Pointing charges also rarely travel alone. A threats count, and sometimes a possession count, commonly ride alongside, which is exactly why the count-by-count analysis on this page matters.

Scenario four: the fake gun (s. 85(2))

Here is the counter-intuitive one. A fake gun can be worse than people assume, not better. Using an imitation firearm while committing an indictable offence is its own charge under s. 85(2), and it carries a fourteen-year maximum. Two features make it serious out of proportion to the object. The imitation branch of s. 85 has no list of excluded offences, unlike the real-firearm branch. And any sentence for it must be served consecutively to the sentence for whatever else happened in the same event, by operation of s. 85(4). So a replica used to threaten during an indictable offence does not fold into the main sentence. It stacks on top.

An imitation firearm is defined broadly. Section 84(1) includes a replica firearm, and the everyday meaning captures anything that imitates a firearm closely enough to do the job of frightening someone. Airsoft, a realistic toy, a replica bought as a collectible: if it was used to menace during an indictable offence, the s. 85(2) analysis is live. The separate question of simply possessing a replica, which are prohibited devices, is a matter for our Markham weapons offence page, and we link it rather than repeat it. The point for this page is that “it was just airsoft” changes the analysis but does not make the file trivial. How the counts are structured around a s. 85(2) allegation is a technical, case-specific exercise, and it is not something to face without counsel.

The consequences, count by count

Because the counts differ, the consequences differ, and a sentence is only part of it. Two consequences reach past the courtroom and often matter more to a client than the maximum on paper: what happens to firearms licences and prohibitions, and what happens to immigration status. This table lines them up by route.

The takeaway is that the election, whether the Crown proceeds summarily or by indictment, drives the prohibition exposure on the weapon-assault route, and the ten-year and fourteen-year maximums trigger immigration consequences on their own. For a permanent resident or a foreign national, that means resolving a threats-with-a-weapon file without immigration-aware advice is a serious risk. Sentencing itself also treats family violence as aggravating under s. 718.2(a)(ii), which matters where the threat was directed at a partner or relative.

Bail and conditions at Newmarket

Markham has no criminal courthouse. Every stage of a York Region file runs through the Newmarket courthouse at 50 Eagle St. W., which is unusual: it houses both the Ontario Court of Justice and the Superior Court of Justice in one building. Compare that with Toronto, where the same allegation would send you to a bail court at 2201 Finch Ave. W., the Ontario Court at 10 Armoury St., and the Superior Court at 361 University Ave., three separate addresses. In York Region it is all one place.

Expect a standard conditions package on a weapon file: no contact with the complainant, staying away from named addresses, and no-weapons terms that require surrendering any firearms and licences. Those conditions can reorganize a person's life fast, especially where they share a home or workplace with the complainant. Conditions are not fixed forever. They can be varied as a file develops, and pursuing a sensible variation early, with a realistic plan the court can trust, is ordinary defence work. We do not promise a particular condition will come off, because that is the court's call, but the request is routine and worth making.

How these files actually end

There is no single ending, and the right one depends on which count you face and how the evidence holds up. The realistic paths are these.

• Withdrawal, where the objective-threat reading falls apart or the object was never a weapon on the facts. If the words do not meet the McRae standard, or the “weapon” was an object held for an innocent reason, the count can go.
• Diversion, where there is no firearm and no domestic element. Ontario Crown policy leaves non-firearm, non-domestic threats eligible for community justice programs on a case-by-case weighing. Any firearm offence is ineligible, and intimate-partner files are presumptively ineligible without senior Crown approval, so this door is closed on many weapon files but open on some.
• A peace bond, in the right case, ending the charge without a conviction. Our Markham peace bond page covers how those work; here it is one option among several.
• Trial, where the defence has real traction: attacking the objective meaning of the words in context, the purpose the object was actually held for, lawful excuse on a pointing count, identity and attribution where the evidence is a recording or a rumour, and Charter challenges to how the object was seized or how a statement was taken.

Which lever fits is not a guess. It comes from reading the disclosure against the specific counts, and it is why the first thing we want is the exact wording of the charge and the evidence gathered so far.

The Newmarket process, start to finish

A multi-count information moves through predictable stages, and knowing the shape of it lowers the anxiety. It begins with the York Regional Police response, usually through #5 District at 8700 McCowan Rd., which polices Markham. Seized objects, photographs and any 911 audio become the spine of the file. Then comes bail at the Ontario Court, much of the case management that follows by video, and a Crown pre-trial where the counts are discussed and, often, consolidated or narrowed. If the matter does not resolve, it goes to trial in the Ontario Court, or in the Superior Court upstairs if you elect that way. None of the counts in this cluster carries a preliminary inquiry, because a prelim is available only where the maximum is fourteen years or more, and the maximums here top out at ten. The Jordan ceiling for an Ontario Court trial is eighteen months, which sets the pace for the whole file.

Why Markham clients call Kazandji Law

A threats-with-a-weapon file is really several possible cases wearing one label, and the first job is to see which one you actually have. That is what we do on the first call. We read the exact counts, not the headline, and we tell you plainly where the pressure points are. If the words do not meet the legal standard, we say so. If the object was never a weapon on the facts, we say that too. And if a firearm has changed the stakes, we are direct about what that means for bail, for diversion and for status, because false comfort helps no one.

We defend these files across Markham and York Region from four offices. Our closest to Markham is in Thornhill, at 7191 Yonge St., Suite 310, which serves Markham and York Region. Our head office is in Toronto at 180 John St., Unit 320, and we also have offices in North York and Oakville. Wherever you are, the file runs through Newmarket, and we appear there.

From the arrest label to the actual charge

One thing worth understanding early: the words on the arrest paperwork are not the last word on what you are charged with. Police lay a charge based on what they believe happened in the moment. A Crown then screens the file, and the screening question is not whether something arguably fits a section. It is whether there is a reasonable prospect of conviction and whether prosecuting serves the public interest. Weapon counts get tested hard at that stage, because the purpose branch of the weapon definition, while broad, still has to be proven on the specific object and the specific conduct. An object grabbed reflexively, held for a beat, and never actually used to menace is not the same as an object brandished to frighten, and a careful defence submission at screening can be the difference between a three-count information and a single manageable charge.

This is why we push to engage the Crown early rather than waiting passively for a trial date. Where the disclosure shows the object was ambiguous, or the words fall short of the McRae standard, or the person named on the pointing count was never actually in the line of the firearm, those are points to make while the file is still being shaped, not only at the end. It is ordinary, unglamorous work, and it is where a good number of these files quietly shrink.

How one Markham incident becomes several counts

Consider a composite, the kind of file we see often, with the details changed. Two people who used to share a home argue in a driveway. One picks up a tire iron from the open trunk, holds it up, and says something a neighbour later describes as a threat. The neighbour records the last few seconds on a phone. By the end of the night there are three counts: uttering threats under s. 264.1 for what was said, assault with a weapon under s. 267(1)(a) for the raised tire iron, and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose under s. 88 on the theory that the iron was taken up to be used against the other person. No one was touched. No one was injured. And yet the exposure on paper runs to ten years, plus a mandatory weapons prohibition if the s. 267 count proceeds by indictment and ends in conviction.

Now watch how the counts move. If the recording captures tone and context that make the words read as venting rather than a genuine threat, the s. 264.1 count weakens. If the tire iron was already in hand because the trunk was open and the argument erupted, rather than fetched as a weapon, the s. 88 theory softens. What is left may be a single s. 267(1)(a) count, and that count itself is contestable on whether the raise met the present-ability test. The same facts, read count by count against the disclosure, can go from a frightening three-count sheet to something far narrower. That is the entire value of the disambiguation exercise, and it is why the label on the arrest report should never be mistaken for the ceiling.

The consecutive-sentence trap in s. 85(2)

The imitation firearm charge deserves a closer look, because its bite is structural rather than obvious. Most sentences for offences arising out of one event are shaped by totality, the principle that a combined sentence should not be crushing or out of proportion to the overall conduct. Section 85 works against that grain. By s. 85(4), a sentence for using an imitation firearm must be served consecutively to any other sentence arising from the same event. So the imitation count does not blend into the main sentence and get absorbed. It is added on top, and the ordinary softening that totality provides is constrained.

That is why a replica or an airsoft device, which a client may have treated as a toy, can end up driving the outcome of a whole file. It is also why the analysis of whether s. 85(2) genuinely fits, whether an indictable offence was truly being committed, whether the object meets the imitation definition, and how the counts are structured around it, is technical work that rewards early, careful attention. We frame the charge-structuring generally here because it is case-specific, and it is not a decision to make without counsel who has read the disclosure. The short version is simple: on a file with an imitation firearm count, the object matters far more than its plastic price tag suggests.

Threats with a weapon FAQ

This page is general legal information about Ontario and Canadian criminal law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create a lawyer and client relationship. Every case turns on its own facts and evidence. Outcomes described here are not promises or predictions of any particular result. For advice on your situation, speak with a lawyer at Kazandji Law by calling 647-588-3234.