@9-10ths_Penguin is quite right, a Canadian PM does have a lot of power. On the other hand, we don't need to resort to impeachment proceedings to get rid of one -- we can do that over tea with a non-confidence motion in the House.
@Stevicus, I am not aware of any party having tried to overturn the norms and standards of this nation. But we're so boring: our biggest precept for making Canada a nice place is POGG (Peace, Order and Good Government). I'm told our favourite colour is grey (don't want to offend). But do you know what the capital of Canada is? Mostly American!
I'm not sure if comparing the relative power of the Canadian PM and the US President is relevant to this particular topic. The President's power often rests on which party is in control of Congress, although when it comes to interpreting the Constitution and free speech issues, that's mainly the purview of the Supreme Court.
As for the possible overturning of the norms and standards of the nation, that can also be open to interpretation. What is commonly referred to as hate speech by today's standards
were the norms and standards for the nation some 50-60 years ago and going all the way back to the very beginning. From the 17th century until about the mid 1960s, not only did the government allow and favor hate speech, it also allowed hateful ideologies and hateful policies to flourish.
Those were the norms and standards of the nation previously, although I'm not sure if Canada followed the same path or not. That's why I asked if Canada had any issues prior to adding hate crime provisions to their criminal code. If there was never any problem in Canada to begin with, then there likely wouldn't be any problems since the provisions were enacted.
In any case, the old order in America was challenged, with precedents such as Separate But Equal being overturned, as well as passage of the Civil Rights Acts, Voting Rights Act, and other such measures to set a new set of norms and standards for the nation. However, in order to challenge the old order and the behemoth of institutional racism, free speech protections were absolutely essential.
I don't recall that many people truly cared all that much about "hate speech," per se, as long as the hateful, fascistic policies were done away with and outlawed. People could still speak all they wanted. It wasn't really until some 20-30 years after that when people (at least in the US) started looking at the effects of speech itself.
The norms and standards of America transformed immensely primarily due to enhancing and expanding freedom of speech, not by restricting it. It wasn't really until decades later, mostly as an afterthought, that people started thinking about restricting hate speech - or any kind of speech deemed offensive or insensitive. Although it was never actually banned outright in America as it was in other countries. But it's still strongly condemned throughout society, and as I mentioned upthread, there are still legal ways of quashing malicious and menacing behavior without necessarily restricting free speech.
There's also the question of whether it even works to achieve a specific goal.
