Actually I've been very consistent as you now can see.
I am not sure how you saying that you are "torn" one time demonstrates that you have been as strong of a supporter of legislated gay marriage as you have been a supporter of anti-SSM marriage. I respect that you recognize the difference in the process but even in that post I sensed that you still had issues with the outcome.
Which, however one feels about SSM, should be considered truly dangerous to a free society, especially when "bigotry" or "hate speech" is in the eye (or ear) of the offended. A point that sadly alludes some of you.
There are lots of issues to take with that article. It is very clearly written by somebody who has read a lot about our legal system but isn't actually familiar with how it operates or the context.
We should begin by recognizing that Canada is not the best country to compare the US to with respect to free speech because our constitutional documents do not place the emphasis on the same things and your free speech clause reads differently than our section on freedom of expression under the Charter.
Now for the boring law lesson. Section 15 of the Charter states that every individual is equal under the law and has the right to equal protection under, and equal benefit of, the law. It also enumerates grounds for discrimination, which include: race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability. These grounds are an example, and you have section 15 protection so long as you can demonstrate that you have been discriminated against on an analogous ground. Back in the mid-90s, our Supreme Court found that sexual orientation was implicitly read into section 15 and thus, is an analogous ground. From that point on, legalization of SSM was the obvious conclusion. All these articles that you post suggest that suddenly there is a rash of cases being brought before the federal and provincial human rights tribunals (which you should be aware of are not courts and therefore have very limited powers, particularly when it comes to enforcement - constitutional litigation, that is to say Charter litigation is
extremely expensive and therefore it is almost never undertaken except in some landmark case where you have big firms willing to go pro bono). Well the reason that these cases are popping up isn't that there is a concerted effort to stifle free speech, it's because sexual orientation was not considered a discriminatory ground until the mid-90s! It sure sounds insane, but there are still states in the US where you're free to fire somebody for being gay. In Canada, equal protection under the law extends to every aspect of the law. The reason you have more complaints to the tribunals is because discrimination which was previously legal (if immoral, IMO) is now no longer legal. The percentage of cases argued on
freedom of expression grounds before the tribunals is TINY. Most of these cases encompass things like landlord/tenant issues, workplace harassment and other workplace issues like constructive dismissal, educational/bullying issues in schools, sexual harassment.
It is by no means that our tribunals sit and exist for the purpose of curtailing free speech. The fact that you can find articles that point to some seemingly harsh findings (without context and without the benefit of reading the judgment) doesn't tell us anything other than some journalist took the time to find them. If you gave any one of us a day to comb through US judicial or quasi-judicial findings, do you think that we wouldn't be able to find absurd, out-of-context quotes or seemingly absurd findings to prove that the US is anti-free speech or is anti-women or is anti-vegetarians? Legal judgments are just like statistics - you can always find ones to support any position. That does not mean that the spirit of the law is interpreted thusly in the nation on the whole.
But perhaps the most operative section of our Charter is section 1, which actually permits the government to curtail the rights of individuals which are set out in the Charter. In short, it allows the government to,
in very limited circumstances curtail your freedom of speech. The test is very onerous and very steep, and without going into the many prongs of it and turning this into a first year constitutional law exam, essentially the onus is on the government to prove, on a balance of probabilities, the curtailment of your rights is
demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society. There are may requirements, but basically for your freedom of speech to be restricted, there must be a pressing and substantial objective and the means must be proportional: they must be rationally connected to the objective, the impairment of rights must be minimal and there must be proportionality between the infringement and the objective. If this test is met, then you may not have absolute freedom of speech like you do in the US. I really should emphasize that it is only in extreme circumstances that such tests are actually met.
So you can take the position that we have less freedom of speech in Canada and are thus less free. I think when this position is taken it is usually taken by uninformed people who don't really understand the context and can't be bothered to find out. But again, our countries are not a good comparison for freedom of speech cases because we prioritize different things in different ways. A mere look at your "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" as contrasted with our analogous language of "peace, order and good government" should be a relatively simplistic, yet useful tool in informing the difference.
Do I prefer the Canadian model? Yes, because as somebody who has lived (as a practicing lawyer) and worked in both countries, I prefer the flexibility of one over the rigid constitutional analysis of the other which treats the founding fathers as if they had the foresight of God and penned a document that was equally as relevant in 50, 200, or 650 years. But that is simply my own preference. The difference between you, INDY, and most people outside of the US is that we are able to recognize that our countries have some very good aspects and some things that need to be improved, but we don't need to go screaming from the rooftops that we are humanity's last great hope (to be honest, the only way I can react to such a statement is with laughter).