The Oct. 21 election had barely been called last Wednesday when the gloves came off between Quebec Premier François Legault and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau over a possible federal court challenge of the province’s contentious securalism legislation.

Read more: Federal leaders debate Bill 21 at Canada's English-language election debatee

Within hours of the official kickoff, Legault — who only a few days before had instructed everyone associated with his government to stay out of the federal battle — jumped in with both feet.

The premier demanded the main leaders guarantee that, should their party form the next federal government, it would not intervene in any present or future challenges of Bill 21, as the law that imposes a secular dress code on some public sector workers is familiarly known.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer readily complied as did the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh. Notwithstanding their disapproval of the Quebec law, both maintain they would as prime minister not fight it in the courts.

Trudeau alone did not entirely acquiesce to the premier’s demand.

Although the Liberal leader says a federal intervention “at this time” would be ”counterproductive,” he refuses to pre-emptively renounce the option.

A week into the current bout of shadow boxing, it is not clear what the end game of either protagonist is.

As Legault knows, no amount of assurances that the federal government will remain on the sidelines will prevent challenges of Bill 21 from going forward and, possibly, succeeding.

More than a few landmark legal victories against major pieces of government legislation including — just last week — the striking down of key sections of the Quebec and federal assisted death laws have been secured by ordinary citizens.

And then Legault is trying to exact from the next prime minister assurances he, as Quebec premier, would never give.

It is not as if past and present Quebec governments had shied away from challenging a host of federal laws.

To wit, in July Legault quietly joined the legal battle launched by a handful of Conservative provincial governments against Trudeau’s climate change framework.

The federal carbon tax does not apply in Quebec and the premier has always claimed to support the intent of Trudeau’s policy. But the CAQ government believes Ottawa is proceeding in a manner that could infringe on its constitutional powers.

It has been Quebec policy under governments of every stripe to intervene in court challenges that could indirectly or directly impact its competence or its legislation.

In the pursuit of that policy, the province has allowed no alliance or historical friendship to stand in the way.

At one point, under Liberal premier Robert Bourassa, Quebec even fought Canada’s French-language minority communities in court over their bid to reinforce their education rights.

Trudeau, for his part, cannot have expected an open-ended statement such as his to put the matter to rest. It is hard to project a courageous image while being evasive.

He will be under pressure to be more specific about his intentions for the remainder of the campaign. The issue is bound to resurface in the upcoming two French-language debates.

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Meanwhile the main consequence of the ongoing war of words between the premier and the Liberal leader has been to propel Bill 21 to the forefront of the election conversation in Quebec.

Some of the voters Trudeau chatted with at a Western festival in St-Tite last weekend were eager to take him to task over the issue.

On Monday a poll done by Léger Marketing for the Journal de Montréal reported that half of Quebec voters want the federal government to stay out of the court battles pertaining to Bill 21.

At least one poll suggested the Liberal leader’s stance is costing his party support in his home province.

But whether Legault has inflicted a knockout punch on the federal Liberals in Quebec still remains to be seen.

Based on the Léger poll, the current alignment in public opinion on whether the federal government should participate in litigation against Bill 21 is not dissimilar from the 2015 election battle lines over the niqab ban at citizenship ceremonies.

That issue pitted the Liberals and the NDP against the Bloc Québécois and the Conservatives. When the votes were counted, Trudeau and then-NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair together were in command of 56 of the province’s 78 seats.

Ultimately a critical number of voters who otherwise supported the niqab ban did not see the issue as central to their election choice.

Similarly, at the outset of the 2014 Quebec election, many pundits predicted a majority victory for then-Parti Québécois leader Pauline Marois.

Those predictions were based on the well-documented popularity of her government’s securalism charter.

But the ballot box question turned out to hinge on the prospect of another referendum on the province’s future and she went down to a decisive defeat.

There are still weeks to go before the 2019 ballot box question is fully formed. At this early stage in the federal campaign, the jury is still out as to whether it is Legault or Trudeau who is overplaying his hand on Bill 21.

Chantal Hébert is a columnist based in Ottawa covering politics. Follow her on Twitter: @ChantalHbert

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