Common good strikes me as even more nebulous than most other political concepts, especially in absence of direct democracy which could at least shed some light on what the population really prefers.

Not to insult anyone and much less Canadians, but I can see Ghaddafi or Khmer Rouge using this expression to justify whatever they decided to do.

The "common good" used to include the Indian Residential School system.

There's one where maybe a little greater weight on personal freedom was indicated.

This is what exactly happened. The common good was applied. Today we are making similiar mistakes that future leaders will say sorry for in the future.

There certainly is a focus on freedom of speech, and it's in our charter of rights and freedoms as one of the fundamental freedoms: "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication".

You're right that we do have a different balance of the common good vs individual liberties as compared to the USA, but of course there are many countries that one could compare to.

Canada certainly doesn't abide by free-speech absolutism, and "hate speech" is a good example. That term used to be applied to very specific, extreme examples. Unfortunately that has been watered down in recent years, and we've seen encroachment in others ways on various freedoms. Not Australia levels, but not great.

All those rights are weighed against a non specific nebulous common good that can mean whatever it needs to mean at that moment to allow activist judges or the government of the day to get what they want.

Freedom of speech would serve Canada better in the long run than censorship and government control of speech