This is a very tough subject. I don't think it will stop being tough anytime soon.
I'm going to put on my brute hat, so I might earn some downvotes for simplicity or unpopular opinion here but I'll take a stab at it anyway:
It seems that many people often conflate what makes a right and what makes a freedom. That is, people want what they call freedom to do something, but what they mean is that they want the right to do something without penalty. Sometimes the opposite is true. As well, being free to do something doesn't mean there is no potential for incurring a penalty or tax or that you are entitled to it.
In Canada, you are free to say whatever you want. If it comes into contrast with what is socially (and subsequently legally) acceptable at the time, then you may or may not face consequences for your actions.
In Ontario you have the right to a prescribed health care plan, nobody is free to remove this from you once registered. You are free to let your card expire, at which point institutions are free to charge you appropriately[1]. It is your freedom to remain without a health card, but it's your right to obtain a new one. Just because you're free to let your free health plan expire, doesn't mean you won't necessarily face consequences for it.
This just goes back to other commenters' point, though: Canadians and Americans tend to define something like this a little differently. I also think much of the 1st world seems to be satisfied with making mistakes along the way to a more ideal solution to the issue. It's my hope that the mistakes get smaller as we go along (and the peoples' standards grow higher, so criticisms grow stronger).
[1] In my experience this has never occurred, though. Mine has expired previously, and I've never been denied or charged according to OHIP.
You can't contrast rights and freedoms when the right in question is a right to free speech. If one has a right to a freedom, and a third party enforces consequences for exercising that freedom, then one's rights are being infringed.
Well if we are talking Canada with this point, it is not a right to a freedom of speech. It's a freedom to speak whatever you may want to speak. The wording of the 1st Amendment is quite different so I can see how the interpretation would vary.
The Canadian constitution states that everyone "has the following fundamental freedoms [...] (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication."
I'll pose a couple of analogies to illustrate how I'm interpreting it:
If I wanted to tell my the CEO off at the company I work for in a grotesque manner, I'm entirely free to do so, but I'd likely lose my job. If he decided to fire back at me, HR would likely intervene to resolve the issue, but not before we're cordoned off to prevent further controversy. (I realize companies aren't quite analogues of countries, I'm taking a bit of a stretch for the sake of illustration).
If I picked a stranger out of a crowd and degraded him publicly, I'm free to do that as well, but I'd probably get punched. If instead of punching me, he decided to throw similar words back and a third person intervened to arbitrate and calm the situation down -- is my freedom then being imposed upon? What if the intervening individual was a police officer or a panel of people, or a body of interested people?
I see these things (like most things outside of technical fields) as far more gradient than binary, so I maintain a pretty strong bias, I know.
In Canada, you are free to say whatever you want. If it comes into contrast with what is socially (and subsequently legally) acceptable at the time, then you may or may not face consequences for your actions.
Same as in any other country, from Switzerland to North Korea.
I'm going to put on my brute hat, so I might earn some downvotes for simplicity or unpopular opinion here but I'll take a stab at it anyway:
It seems that many people often conflate what makes a right and what makes a freedom. That is, people want what they call freedom to do something, but what they mean is that they want the right to do something without penalty. Sometimes the opposite is true. As well, being free to do something doesn't mean there is no potential for incurring a penalty or tax or that you are entitled to it.
In Canada, you are free to say whatever you want. If it comes into contrast with what is socially (and subsequently legally) acceptable at the time, then you may or may not face consequences for your actions.
In Ontario you have the right to a prescribed health care plan, nobody is free to remove this from you once registered. You are free to let your card expire, at which point institutions are free to charge you appropriately[1]. It is your freedom to remain without a health card, but it's your right to obtain a new one. Just because you're free to let your free health plan expire, doesn't mean you won't necessarily face consequences for it.
This just goes back to other commenters' point, though: Canadians and Americans tend to define something like this a little differently. I also think much of the 1st world seems to be satisfied with making mistakes along the way to a more ideal solution to the issue. It's my hope that the mistakes get smaller as we go along (and the peoples' standards grow higher, so criticisms grow stronger).
[1] In my experience this has never occurred, though. Mine has expired previously, and I've never been denied or charged according to OHIP.