Well, they really went and did it. With countless very consequential fish already in the fryer, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Justice Minister Sean Fraser chucked in a whopper this week, asking the Supreme Court to revisit a landmark 1988 decision on how it interprets and adjudicates the notwithstanding clause — that’s Section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which allows governments to ignore certain Charter rights for five-year periods.

We can only hope they have some idea what they’re doing, because it’s not difficult at all to imagine this leading to a constitutional crisis. If Ottawa tells Quebec it can’t limit minority rights even using Section 33, it’s not hard to imagine Quebec simply ignoring Ottawa and doing it anyway.

The case at hand is the interminable challenge ag

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