i have to be blunt, though - we do have some funny laws in canada that ought to be overturned. "fake news" is actually a legal term, in canada - to our shame.

the americans have a freer society than we do, when it comes to speech. and, we should be reflecting on that, and asking ourselves whether some of the laws that we have in our code are really compatible with a free and democratic society, because some of them really aren't.

our court has not been activist enough in striking these laws down, which have often been ruled as unconstitutional, but saved under s. (1). we have some existent precedent around speech in canada that we should really be ashamed of. i think that canadians are broadly unaware of this - we think we have more freedom of speech than we really have.

i would argue that any laws restricting the utterance of threats are sufficient to protect people from harm, and anything beyond this should be abolished, as it has the potential for abuse.

nonetheless, hate speech does remain protected in canada, so long as it is not directly threatening or harassing anybody, even if the protection for it is in truth disappointingly weak.