Ottawa and the provinces prepare to battle in constitutional combat

OTTAWA — With a short, 20-odd page Supreme Court submission on Wednesday, the federal government struck a match and threw it onto a pile of Constitutional gasoline that was growing for years and primed to blow.

In its first legal intervention in the challenge of Quebec’s controversial secularism law (also known as Bill 21), the federal government told the country’s top court that there should be limits on the use of the most hotly debated section of the Charter of Rights: section 33, or the notwithstanding clause.

The clause allows a government to override specific Charter rights for up to five years, at which point the use of the power must be reviewed.

“This case is about more than the immediate issues before the Court. The Supreme Court’s decision will shape how both federal and prov