Here is a teaser clip from our upcoming True, Strong and Free documentary. https://youtu.be/l4E0TBNJ-VQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_gOp36pZkw

For over a decade I've had the privilege of being associated with the Brockville Rifles, despite my own complete lack of military service, thanks initially to Brigitte and I spending a weekend "embedded" with the Brocks as journalists on an urban warfare exercise at Fort Drum and then both of us being made honorary members of their officers' mess.

It's a remarkable experience and one I wish more Canadians knew about. The Brocks are a "reserve" regiment. They train citizen-soldiers who, if they see active service, will do so seconded to other regiments. Even in World War II, with massive mobilization, the Brocks were "feeders" to the Stormont Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders, themselves now also a reserve unit. But that doesn't make them second string.

In the first place, members of Canada's dozens of reserve units are a vital supplement to the regular forces in places like Afghanistan, serving on equal terms. But in the second, they are a crucial link between citizens and the military.

It is impossible to overstate the importance, over many centuries, of that link. In the free countries of the Anglosphere, security has never been primarily the responsibility of military professionals, dedicated as they are. Indeed it has always been understood that for the military to see itself as separate from society, an elite answerable to the state not to their fellows, is a dangerous step toward tyranny. By contrast for citizens to see the military in themselves and vice versa, as with the police, is part of a healthy body politic.

The reserve-based citizen-soldier connection is also important because it helps maintain awareness and appreciation among citizens of the need for readiness in an uncertain world and an understanding that national defence is not "someone else's problem" but that of their neighbours, their colleagues, their relatives and themselves. Including readiness to respond to domestic emergencies whether natural or man-made.

Over the years I've had the opportunity to write about the reserves on a number of occasions including in Reader's Digest after another embedded exercise, at Petawawa, in which Brigitte and I even got to ride in helicopters and wave honey-soaked rations at a mama bear. (OK, that was just me, and not on purpose.) And I've been privileged to speak to the Brocks' annual mess dinner. But it's difficult to convey the special world of the reserves to those not familiar with it.

So when I got a newsletter concerning the 150th anniversary celebrations for the regiment, I thought "This really is a remarkable window into the community of the Brockville Rifles." Not just the community within the regiment, but the larger community of current and former members and their civilian friends and supporters. So I contacted them to ask whether it would be appropriate to share it and they said to go ahead. Here it is: (you can also view it here)

[pdf-embedder url="http://www.thejohnrobson.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/150th-Mass-email-letter_June-2016_Final.pdf"]

If you read the letter, I think most of you will get a sense that something unfamiliar but clearly wonderful and important is going on here. And I hope you'll consider getting to know the reserves in your own town, city or area, and to understand just how important the citizen-soldier is not just to our defence but to our way of life. Up the Brocks! And happy 150th.

In my latest National Post commentary I underline the constitutional crisis of judges becoming legislators.

In my latest column for the National Post I argue that Trudeau manhandling MPs was not just rudeness to colleagues. It was an assault by the executive branch on the legislature and, therefore, on Canadian citizens, who elect MPs to control the government on their behalf. One more reason we urgently need to fix our Constitution. Please back our documentary project and help us show the way.

In my latest National Post commentary I praise the New Brunswick court ruling that our Constitution (S. 121) does indeed clearly expressly ban interprovincial trade barriers. It’s high time someone did something about them, and shameful that the New Brunswick cabinet apparently intend to continue riding roughshod over the rule of law and their citizens. See also the paper I had the privilege of co-authoring for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in 2010, along with its Executive Director Brian Lee Crowley and the late Robert Knox, a veteran of efforts to free up interprovincial trade, arguing for striking down all internal protectionism in goods, services and trades on exactly those grounds. It looks as if it’s finally going to happen.

Today I got this envelope from Statistics Canada saying "2016 Census: Complete the census - it's the law." (Equally rude in French: "Recensement de 2016: Répondez au recensement - c'est la loi".) I am told the government is the servant of the people. But this peremptory tone, giving orders without even a pretence at "please," is not how a servant speaks to a master. Quite the reverse. Remember how all the right people were shocked and appalled when the Harper Tories got rid of the long form census? Without accurate data, they complained, social scientists would find it hard to engineer satisfaction of the human units to a sufficient number of decimal places. Which I always found rather an odd conception of the proper role of government and of its abilities. And look how they talk to us now that it's back.

The smart set make a lot of fuss about "evidence-based decision-making". But a decision to trust the intelligence or benevolence of government doesn't seem to me to be based on much sound evidence. Not even the personal stuff I have to provide or else, according to this envelope that just marched into my house, waved a pair of handcuffs at me and started shouting questions.

On Friday a Provincial Court judge in New Brunswick struck down a duly enacted law and I couldn't be happier. It was a section of the provincial liquor act limiting the right to buy beer next door in Quebec and it was clearly unconstitutional. Now it might seem that I like judicial activism when it goes my way. But it's not that at all. It's that properly designed constitutions are set up to keep government limited even when the ambitions of politicians or a temporary lapse in the good sense of the public push them to expand, and to guarantee that rights are respected even when expedience seems to argue for violating them. When courts strike down laws that infringe basic constitutional guarantees of liberty, it's not activism. It's proper checks and balances against legislative or executive activism.

There is in the end no paper defence against people genuinely heedless or contemptuous of their own liberties and those of others. But the American Constitution is famously an appeal "from the people drunk to the people sober" and so is ours even when the issue is the right to buy beer. As a Macdonald-Laurier Institute press release praising the judgement rightly notes, our Constitution deliberately forbade the provinces from engaging in petty internal protectionism.

The release links to a paper I had the privilege of coauthoring with Institute Executive Director Brian Lee Crowley and the late Robert Knox back in 2010 explaining what our Founders did and why and how, and how the federal government could and should act to make their vision a reality. It's excellent that a court has taken the right view of this matter and I hope the ruling is not appealed or, if it is, that it is upheld.

I also hope the federal parliament will be emboldened to legislate and end to all such protectionism. It clearly has the power and not just the right but the duty.

Meanwhile our own draft constitution, part of our "True, Strong and Free" project, will not only reiterate but strengthen the constitutional provision against internal protectionism just to be safe. But here's one case where a court has acted in the genuine spirit of the constitution and of upholding legitimate rights not inventing unworkable ones. And it deserves our applause.