423. (1) Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years or is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction who, wrongfully and without lawful authority, for the purpose of compelling another person to abstain from doing anything that he or she has a lawful right to do, or to do anything that he or she has a lawful right to abstain from doing,
(a) uses violence or threats of violence to that person or his or her spouse or commonlaw partner or children, or injures his or her property;
(b) intimidates or attempts to intimidate that person or a relative of that person by threats that, in Canada or elsewhere, violence or other injury will be done to or punishment inflicted on him or her or a relative of his or hers, or that the property of any of them will be damaged;
(c) persistently follows that person;
(d) hides any tools, clothes or other property owned or used by that person, or deprives him or her of them or hinders him or her in the use of them;
(e) with one or more other persons, follows that person, in a disorderly manner, on a highway;
(f) besets or watches the place where that person resides, works, carries on business or happens to be; or
(g) blocks or obstructs a highway.
(2) A person who attends at or near or approaches a dwelling-house or place, for the purpose only of obtaining or communicating information, does not watch or beset within the meaning of this section.
423.1
(1) No person shall, without lawful authority, engage in conduct referred to in subsection (2) with the intent to provoke a state of fear in:
(a) a group of persons or the general public in order to impede the administration of criminal justice;
(b) a justice system participant in order to impede him or her in the performance of his or her duties; or
(c) a journalist in order to impede him or her in the transmission to the public of information in relation to a criminal organization.
(2) The conduct referred to in subsection (1) consists of:
(a) using violence against a justice system participant or a journalist or anyone known to either of them or destroying or causing damage to the property of any of those persons;
(b) threatening to engage in conduct described in paragraph (a) in Canada or elsewhere;
(c) persistently or repeatedly following a justice system participant or a journalist or anyone known to either of them, including following that person in a disorderly manner on a highway;
(d) repeatedly communicating with, either directly or indirectly, a justice system participant or a journalist or anyone known to either of them; and
(e) besetting or watching the place where a justice system participant or a journalist or anyone known to either of them resides, works, attends school, carries on business or happens to be.
(3) Every person who contravenes this section is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than fourteen years.
