The Supreme Court of Canada’s Whatcott decision is bad in several respects. It thrusts the court into adjudicating standards which they pretend to be objective and which are intensely subjective. It puts their opinions at the centre of the question of boundaries. You will have as much freedom of speech as these people think reasonable in the circumstances. Nowhere do they sing the praises of free speech as an essential element of liberty. They decline to tolerate offensive speech in the name of social peace. They consider themselves capable of arbitrating these matters, which is bad enough, but they show no regard to the role of the human rights tribunals who have less intelligence, good will, or benign inclination than their Lordships do.
Everyone concerned with public policy needs to consider this fact: the rulings may issue from people with several university degrees, but they are enforced by people with, at best, degrees from training colleges. The generals may issue orders but the interpretation is left to sergeants and corporals, and carried out by privates. Far better to remove the question of adjudicating claims to truth versus claims to preserving social peace from Human Rights Tribunals in the first place.
The best argument comes from Mark Steyn (of course!), He says he rejects not so much their ruling as their claim to jurisdiction over the matter. Dalwhinnie, J. concurring.