Is Canada Free?

A few weeks ago, there was much noise about the fact that in one dataset, the US was considered a bit less free economically than Canada.  I, of course, scoffed since I live in Quebec, where the heavy hand of the state is always on the wheel, much more so than anywhere in the US.  But that got me to thinking, especially as debates have flared up about niqabs and English private schools: does the notwithstanding clause mean that Canada is only mostly free or partly free?

Canada does have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees

(a) freedom of conscience and religion;

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;

(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and

(d) freedom of association.

 This also includes legal rights to life, liberty, security, due process, equality under the law, and so forth.
It goes on to guarantee language rights:

Official languages of Canada

16. (1) English and French are the official languages of Canada and have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and government of Canada.

Language of instruction

23. (1) Citizens of Canada

(a) whose first language learned and still understood is that of the English or French linguistic minority population of the province in which they reside, or

(b) who have received their primary school instruction in Canada in English or French and reside in a province where the language in which they received that instruction is the language of the English or French linguistic minority population of the province,

have the right to have their children receive primary and secondary school instruction in that language in that province. (footnote indicates not in force in Quebec). 

 At first, I noticed that it specifies citizens, but the restrictions on language education in Quebec apply even to immigrants who become citizens.  And there is the kicker--the footnote saying this does not apply in Quebec.

To be clear, I am not a Canadianist or a constitutional scholar, but it seems mighty strange that a charter of fundamental freedoms provides the national parliament or any provincial assembly to say: nope, not for us.  There are limits--that the notwithstanding invocation only lasts five years.  Then the assembly or parliament would have to vote again.  But these votes are simple majorities.  So, as long as a minority is permanently a minority, their rights exist to a large degree at the whim of the majority. 

This leads to me the conclusion that this Charter (unless I am confused, that the notwithstanding clause can only be applied to part of it?) is just a piece of paper.  If the government can pass restrictions on rights, such as the right to wear religious garb, with a simple majority, then does freedom of religion really exist?  If one cannot choose the language of instruction for one's children from one of the two official languages but is forced to educate the child in one, does this right exist?  Not in Quebec.  

I understand that the politics of past constitutional crises have produce compromises that perhaps have allowed Canada to remain united.  But the cost has been a certain amount of freedoms and rights.  So, I guess Canada is mostly free.