The Mayor is an experienced politician looking through to the next  election and playing to his natural constituency. I agree it is a freedom of speech issue and the "hate crime" label is generally a hand grenade tossed into the debate room   by progressives to silence views and debate they don't like. It doesn't work anymore and the worm is slowly turning sharply to the right in this country.  Robertson will not get re-elected: bike lanes, the Burrard Bridge mess, money recklessly spilled around and increased  taxes will all see to that.