A curious story in today's National Post says PEI's Liberal administration will start providing abortions because it doesn't believe it can defeat a court challenge claiming abortion is secretly a Charter right. Frankly it sounds like one more case of politicians using judges as a handy excuse to do something they want to do anyway without the hassle of defending it to voters. Time was ministries felt an obligation to defend existing law in court unless they were willing to stand up in the legislature and urge that it be changed or repealed, which arguably contributed to accountability in government. I'm not sure what was wrong with that system. But there's a deeper question here.

Specifically, how can the Charter mandate abortion so clearly that governments fold like cheap lawn furniture before an activists' challenge when (a) it doesn't mention it (b) many of those who wrote the Charter opposed abortion and would be both astounded and horrified to be told that without realizing they'd secretly written it in?

Alternatively, if it's that obvious, why didn't the brave politicians notice and act on it before the challenge was filed?

This sort of disingenuous legislative-judicial two-step is no way to settle important and contentious questions. Instead, it's one more reason we need a real Constitution, based on popular consent, with a real Charter of Rights that guarantees real rights in plain language even citizens can read and understand, with no invisible ink.

In my latest commentary for the National Post I argue that, despite very legitimate concerns about government snooping and online security, the police do have the right to tech firms’ help getting into a suspects’ devices if they have a warrant.

It's great news that New Zealanders have voted to keep their flag instead of adopting an ugly empty substitute. And revealing news. At first the traditional flag seemed doomed, partly because it was the traditional flag. Why, it even had the Union Jack, and the usual suspects were saying New Zealand couldn't be all grown up until they dumped their heritage and... what? Got a new one?

Oddly, the incoherent answer there, as so often here in Canada, was implicitly if furtively yes. The other ugly options with ferns were somehow meant to represent the real New Zealand, which didn't spring from the Anglosphere but by some strange coincidence had all its virtues while being trendily postmodern, inclusive and amorphous or something, And typically it was the "centre-right" party that was pushing the change.

Unsurprisingly it was veterans' groups who spearheaded the opposition early on. And possibly people with taste. And in the end the politicians managed to make the whole thing sour and skewed, and in the aftermath people are going after PM John Key, claiming that by intruding his own preferences for a new flag he prevented the people from voting the old one out in favour of a blank space into which some false new traditional emblem could later have been easily inserted.

It's one thing to be sensitive to failings in our past and determined not to repeat them. And, to be fair, to worry that your flag looks too much like Australia's, as some New Zealanders did. It's quite another to reject the past but deviously, substituting an ersatz one instead of owning up that you really don't like the place as it actually evolved and want to get a new better one. And when consulted, people with a heritage worth keeping will reject the latter every time. As I very much imagine Canadians would have done if given a vote on whether to ditch our Red Ensign for a logo in the Liberal Party's colours back in 1965.

I don't think it's coincidence that the traditional New Zealand flag is actually nice to look at and the various replacements were not. They had that focus-grouped-logo look, smooth, manipulative, contrived and off-putting. And in that they accurately reflected the deeper impulse behind the move to replace the traditional emblem and the tradition itself with something artificial and uninspiring.

Anyway, congratulations to New Zealanders for keeping the old flag flying. And not just, I hope, on the flag pole.

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, our fundraising partner on the True North and Free documentary project on fixing our Constitution, has just announced the 2016 version of its Essay Contest for Canadian college and university students. Their website gives the full terms and conditions. But basically if you were a college or university student in Canada last year or will be one this year, you're invited to write 2,500 words or less on:

Should the government and government bodies, through law and policy, force voluntary associations (charitable, political, cultural, ethnic, religious, social, recreational, educational, etc.) to be inclusive and welcoming of everyone?

Why or why not?

There are cash prizes for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place.

In an official statement on Easter, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said "Easter is the holiest of Christian holidays, and marks the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ." With commendable, and remarkable, direct affirmation. It may be a sorry commentary on our times that I find his statement remarkable. But here's a politician who professes to be a Roman Catholic commenting on a Christian holiday without inserting a bunch of weasel words about "Christians believe" or "some say" or "what they consider". Instead it states the resurrection as a fact.

People who aren't Christians don't consider it one, of course. And there's a time and place to acknowledge their views. But Easter isn't it, for people who are Christian. For as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:14, "if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain."

Easter is a time for Christians to hold up their heads and their beliefs, stating the reason for the hope that is in them. On Easter Friday itself our Prime Minister apparently just did so.

The United States Supreme Court just made a singularly sensible ruling that stun guns are weapons. Duh, what else would they be? Perhaps. But here's the thing. As UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh explains (and by the way I heartily recommend his multi-author blog for the Washington Post, "The Volokh Conspiracy"), what was at issue was a bizarre ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Court that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution only protects weapons in wide use in 1789.

Now as Stephen P. Halbrook pointed out more than three decades ago in That Every Man Be Armed, people would be outraged if an American court tried to impose this sort of narrow construction on any other key right. Imagine the outcry, including from Canadians, if an American judge suggested that free speech was limited to the government, as some have claimed the right to arms is limited to state militias, or restricted its application to 18th-century-style hand-cranked printing presses.

By the same token, there's no justification for taking such a view with respect to modern firearms or to "stun guns", often casually referred to by the name of one particular brand, the Taser, which incidentally is an acronym from "Thomas A. Swift's Electric Rifle" from the 10th instalment in the once very popular children's adventure series whose excessive fondness for adverbs accompanying speech acts gave us the "Tom Swifty", of the form "'I'm thirsty,' he said dryly."

There's another point to consider, and one that speaks directly to Canada's incredibly tight restrictions on weapons. The Massachusetts decision in question, COMMONWEALTH v. JAIME CAETANO, involved a woman who was found, in the course of an investigation into shoplifting, to be carrying a stun gun for protection against a violent ex-boyfriend.

Is that so wrong? There is no suggestion that the weapon was used, displayed or mentioned in the alleged shoplifting incident, and if it had been, there are criminal sanctions against armed robbery that would apply. But she did say she'd had to display it to scare off her ex-boyfriend at least once, which sure sounds to me like a socially desirable outcome as well as an action clearly protected by the American Second Amendment.

Now consider that in Canada such devices are prohibited. You just can't have one. Not in your car, not in your purse, not in your house. Only the government can have them.

Why? Does anyone fear a mass tasering leaving dozens dead? Even if you grant the legitimacy of restrictions on certain types of firearms, which I don't, what possible justification exists for forbidding a woman to carry a stun gun for protection against a stalker? To have one in case she is swarmed by hostile men in a public place? Or at least to have one beside her bed in case she wakes up to find an intruder looming over her?

If you can't answer those questions either, stay tuned for our documentary A Right to Arms, where we argue that Canadians' unquestioned historic right to self-defence was sound on utilitarian grounds as well as those of natural law, and should be restored.

Meanwhile, good for the U.S. Supreme Court. They've given the Massachusetts court orders to try again, but with a pretty clear warning that it better come back with a more sensible ruling.

My colleague Kelly McParland writes perceptively that Prime Minister Trudeau's new Senate appointments have attracted less notice than they should have. I should confess first that I was once again not on the list and second that Kelly quotes me approvingly in the piece that the list is so predictable "it might have been selected by an affirmative action random-elite-candidate-generator.". And now I want to return the favour by quoting him approvingly.

"Would it have been too much to include just one new senator who doesn’t see government as the answer to every problem? An entrepreneur? Someone who’s been required to meet a payroll or risked their own money on an idea?"

Apparently it would. Which is why we need to fix the constitution including creating a Senate that is truly legitimate because it is elected, is independent of the Prime Minister and yet effective, and represents the provinces without paralyzing Parliament.

Yes it can be done. Australia does it. And in our upcoming documentary we'll give a lot more detail on how to make it work. Including why it's especially troubling to see former senior public servants become legislators. The fusion of the upper reaches of the public service and the legislature into a fourth branch unknown to constitutional theory is not good for our democracy.

In my latest National Post commentary I ask why politicians and bureaucrats, who are doing pretty well in terms of salary, perks and opportunities, find it so hard to maintain clearly visible high ethical standards.