An amusing item from the latest Landowner magazine on how government works... or tries to.

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to defend existing law in court unless they were willing to stand up in the legislature and urge that it be changed or repealed, which arguably contributed to accountability in government.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.

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.

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.

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 commentary for the National Post I argue that the debate over carbon taxes as a key environmental policy is pointlessly obscured by bickering over whether this tax, and only this one, should be “revenue neutral”. Especially as a number of leading politicians seem to have no idea whatsoever what the term even means, let alone why it matters.

In my latest National Post column I ask how it can be sexist and traumatic for waitresses to wear skirts, yet a foul-mouthed rapper headlines a glittering reception for the Prime Minister in Washington.

A strange juxtaposition of stories on the front page of today’s National Post. One alleges “a growing outcry over ‘sexualized’ dress codes in the workplace” led by government apparatchiks talking to journalists interviewing sociology professors. The burning human rights issue is women wearing skirts and men wearing pants while working in restaurants. And the solution is men wearing skirts. No. Just kidding about the last part. The solution is of course women wearing pants because men are the template for human beings and “Why can’t a women be more like a man?” is the battle cry of feminism. On the same page we read that Justin Trudeau is… hold me, I’m dizzy… visiting Washington where he will host a reception to which someone has invited the “Grammy-winning Toronto artist” The Weeknd whose “morose blend of profanity, sexism and proscribed behaviour will add to the impression that Canada has changed; that this is not the boring little brother in the attic bedroom Americans have grown complacent living alongside.” So suddenly profanity, sexism and proscribed behaviour make you cool instead of a threat to social justice?

Apparently so. If a woman wears a skirt it’s traumatic, patriarchal and oppressive. But when you sing about… OK. This is awkward. In order to explain the problem here I actually have to quote some of the incredibly obscene, disgusting lyrics that have made this person a star and secured him an invitation to meet with Canada’s Prime Minister. I’d rather not, and if you’re willing to take my word for it don’t read on. But the weirdness, even horror of the juxtaposition of the two stories is precisely that the usual suspects are having PC conniptions about skirts. Yet when this guy sings about… you are warned and here we go… “f**ing b**ches” and “she ride it like a f**ing pony” and “We don't need no protection” and “Let me see that ***/ Look at all this cash/ And I emptied out my cards too/ Now I'm f**king leaning on that/ Bring your love baby I could bring my shame/ Bring the drugs baby I could bring my pain” (do not see the site http://www.azlyrics.com/w/weeknd.html for these and more, without the asterisks, if you have anything resembling good taste) he’s proof that Canada is cool and gets to hang with PM Selfie instead of facing the Ontario Human Rights Commission complaint that might loom if you said dresses look elegant on women but silly on men.

Oh well. I guess it’s all this progress we’ve been having lately.