In today's Mercatornet Newsletter, Editor Michael Cook cites a noteworthy observation by his colleague Carolyn Moynihan:

A great deal of ink has been spilt over the rather dreary topic of the state of public bathrooms in the United States. Transgenders, it is argued, clearly have a civil right to access the bathroom of their choice. This is an issue which affects, at most 0.3% of the population. For my money, Carolyn Moynihan, our deputy editor, has penned the most sensible contribution to this debate. She asks why Americans are working themselves into a frenzy over bathrooms when nearly 1 in 6 young men between 18 and 34 is either out of work or in jail.

In principle it's possible, even logical, to be compassionate to everyone. But her observation underlines how selective, and ostentatious, some people's concern seems to be.

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 column I object to the peremptory manner in which the census demands personal information on behalf of social engineers whose capacities I seriously question.

There he goes again, you may be tempted to say. Our PM posed with the Canadian Invictus Games team and did their pushup-then-lock-one-arm-and-extend-other-hand gesture while issuing a thinly veiled challenge to Prince Harry and President Obama to do the same or something similar for the British and American teams for the upcoming games in Orlando. NBC headlined it "Watch Justin Trudeau's Macho Challenge to Obama, Prince Harry" and indeed my first thought was "Showing off again, huh?" But on reflection I'm going to praise him instead. First, the Invictus Games created by Prince Harry "for wounded, injured and sick Service personnel" are an excellent cause. Second, fitness is an excellent cause. Third, and crucially, the two leaders he implicitly challenges are both themselves healthy and physically active. It would be unfair and in bad taste to call out a political leader who through age or misfortune couldn't do such a thing. But in this case I appreciate his doing the... well, it sure is a clumsy thing to describe.

So I was thinking of dubbing it "the Trudeau" so we can do it at the dojo without spending five minutes naming it. But I decided "the Invictus" was a better name. Because this time I don't think he was calling attention to himself but to two worthy causes: rehabilitating wounded members of our Armed Forces and those of our allies, and staying fit.

Yes, it's a challenge, to other leaders and to the rest of us. But it's a worthy challenge because most of us should be able to do at least one "Invictus". If Trudeau happens to look good doing it, it's because he keeps himself in shape. And that's a good thing.

It seems that Donald Trump will indeed win the Republican nomination for president. For months I have been predicting, at first blithely and more recently grimly, that it would not happen. And now I am eating crow. I got it badly wrong and I apologize. I have no excuse. I don't even have an explanation. I have great faith in Americans and a great deal more faith in Republicans than most commentators around the world and even, I often feel, in the United States. And perhaps I allowed wishful thinking to distort my sense of what was likely to happen.

The GOP has nominated candidates I did not approve of in the past. So have the Democrats. But normally I could find some sort of explanation, even for Hillary Clinton, who I think would make a pretty bad president. For Trump I just can't. It makes no sense to want this man as your leader or your representative. You can't admire his grasp of the issues, his consistent adherence to a philosophy, his suavity, his gravitas.

Sure, he annoys the right people. But so did Ted Cruz and any number of other potential nominees. Ronald Reagan drove them berserk, as did George W. Bush. You didn't need Trump for that, and I have no idea what anyone does think they need him for. And annoying people may bring a certain sour private satisfaction. But it cannot drive political conduct anywhere you want to go.

I'm not abandoning my faith in the United States or in American conservatives. But I am saying this outcome, and with Ted Cruz suspending his campaign after his crushing defeat in Indiana it seems inevitable that Trump will be their nominee, reflects badly on both the nation and the movement.

It's too early to risk a prediction about what will happen in the general election especially given how wrong I was about this nomination race. But I am certain that those who backed Trump will eventually be very sorry they did.

As for me, I'm already sorry. In both senses.

Yet another warning in my inbox this morning from the C.D. Howe Institute (full disclosure: my brother runs the place and was co-author of the study) about how the federal government continues systematically and dramatically to understate the unfunded liability in its employee pension plans. It may seem like a sleeper. But one day it will wake up and it won't be pleasant. According to authors William Robson and Alexandre Laurin, the feds admit to roughly a $150 billion shortfall. But the real figure is $269 billion. And, they say, if the difference were added to the national debt (as the admitted amount already is) it would stand at $730 billion not $612 billion.

It goes without saying that you should not try this sort of thing at home. The government would not like it.

It's a Three Fold Total Bad. In the first place, it's deliberately dishonest. C.D. Howe has been warning about it for years and they are not some radical right-wing outfit prone to bungling or torqueing their calculations.

In the second, it's fiscally reckless. Even the move to have federal employees fund their pensions more fully is undermined, that other Robson and Laurin note, because they calculate the amount required according to the understated figure. And all the blather about how debt is small and manageable as a share of GDP is also undermined by such jiggery pokery.

In the third, it's yet another case of people in government cutting themselves a great big generous slice of pie while the rest of us tighten our belts in hard times and, when we look at them sidewise, go "What? What?" as though their cheeks were not bulging. Whatever happens, federal employees will collect generous pensions they have not paid for. Even if the rest of us have to be taxed within an inch of bankruptcy to make it happen.

Then they wonder why government is in disrepute nowadays. All the way to the bank.

Of course, they're counting on us to sleep through the various alarms. But this is no time to hit the snooze button.

Next month, I'm delighted to say, I'll be taking part in the REIC annual meeting and conference in Ottawa. The topic of my address will be "Without Ethics, None of This Works". Institutions are vitally important. But even more fundamental is a political and commercial culture that values honesty and shuns and punishes deceit. Without honesty, formal rules mean nothing, in government, in real estate and commerce generally, and in our private lives.

Without ethics, none of this works.

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.