Fine - you tell me how speech can discriminate against LGBT, against black people, against religions then. How about 'Judaism is a fake religion' ? Or LGBT people are actually mentally ill - they aren't really gay they need therapy. Like that ? How can it not be discriminatory to deny that trans women are women ? If it's not then what is C16 even for ?
And, no, refusing admission to a talk on discrimination isn't discrimination.
Refusing admission to a talk on discrimination is the only thing you've mentioned that actually is discrimination.
"Judaism is a fake religion"? I can point you to a very interesting discussion about the theory that Judaism began as a polytheistic pantheon of pagan gods just like its contemporaries, and that the monotheist Yahweh-centric version of Judaism that we know only emerged after priests of Yahweh (previously the war god) gained ascendancy and expunged worship of the other gods in the pantheon and removed them from the scriptures. Is Christianity a fake religion? We have academic discussions about the historical existence of Jesus, we have discussions about how much of the scripture was contemporaneous and how much was fan-fiction created 200 years later by the early church. Some of this stuff might upset religious people, but none of it meets the actual definition of discrimination.
What is discrimination? Let's talk more about that.
In a broad sense, of course discrimination just means being choosy. If someone likes music, but only polka music, they have discriminating tastes. If someone only considers movies real art if they're set in office building, they have discriminating tastes. If DeShawn only reads books by black authors, then he's discriminating, but not in a problematic sense.
Discrimination becomes problematic when it it unfairly denies someone opportunities or results in someone being treated unfairly.
If DeShawn walks into Hatori's Japanese book store and says "I want to read books by black authors", and Hatori says "Sorry, I only sell books by Japanese authors", has DeShawn been discriminated against? Well, no. If Hatori says "Sorry, I only sell books to Japanese people", then that would be discriminatory. But if DeShawn has the same opportunity to purchase Hatori's products as any other customer, then no. It's not problematic, in a legal sense, that Hatori doesn't sell books that DeShawn is interested in.
If Hatori puts a Help Wanted sign in the window one day and DeShawn comes in and says "hey, I want to apply for that job", and Hatori says "sorry, I only hire Japanese people", then that's discriminatory. If Hatori says "sorry, all my books are in Japanese, and many of my customers only speak Japanese, so I need an employee who can read and speak Japanese", then he has a justifiable reason for discriminating (a legitimate job requirement). But if DeShawn says "surprise, bud, I am completely fluent in Japanese", then DeShawn meets that requirement and Hatori has no justifiable reason for not considering DeShawn for the position.
If Wolfgang's Super Schnitzel and Pork Sausage Factory is hiring, and a Jewish person applies for the job but he can't handle pork products for religious reasons, is Wolfgang discriminatory for not hiring him? If handling pork is a requirement of the job and an applicant won't handle pork, then Wolfgang has a justifiable reason for not considering their application.
How about 'Judaism is a fake religion' ? Or LGBT people are actually mentally ill - they aren't really gay they need therapy. Like that ?
There might be a hate speech argument to be made, or maybe not. It would depend on the specifics.
How can it not be discriminatory to deny that trans women are women ? If it's not then what is C16 even for ?
I don't think Bill C-16 was intended to suppress ideas that make people uncomfortable. During the Lindsay Shepard debacle at WLU, Professor Rambukkana had told Shepard that she'd violated Bill C-16; among the discussion that followed from that incident was opinion of legal analysts that no, Shepard certainly had not violated C-16. Professor Rambukkana had it wrong.
Bill C-16 is intended, as far as I understand it, to guarantee everyone the right to gender expression, and prohibit discrimination based on gender expression. It also adds gender identity and gender expression to the list of things covered under hate speech and hate crime laws. Does saying "trans women are not women" qualify as hate speech? As discussed earlier, declaring something hate speech in a legal sense is a high bar to reach.
And I'm not aware that Bill C-16 imposes any definition on the word "woman". Someone like Murphy arguing that "trans women are not women" doesn't prevent anybody from expressing their gender identity as they wish.
-k