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Which is perhaps fair enough: an ally isn’t supposed to be a boss. But even as Legault was saying this, he reiterated that he will continue to oppose new east-west pipeline construction in Quebec because there is no “social acceptability” for filthy Western oil to pass through its territory.

This is a weird position if your foundational principle is protecting the division of powers in the actual Canadian constitution. There is good reason for doubt, as the splits in the appellate court rulings have shown, about which level of government is theoretically responsible for addressing carbon emissions that have global consequences. There is no doubt whatsoever that the federal government can approve the building of pipelines: their “social acceptability” in any given province can be of no constitutional relevance whatsoever.

It is simply not the habit of Canadians to appeal to the constitution when it comes to the allocation of government powers

Legault, I suppose, doesn’t care. His true philosophical position is the same as any Quebec premier’s: maximum autonomy for Quebec of every kind, except for fiscal self-sufficiency. But it really does make him a strange bedfellow for the provinces that are crying out for pipeline access.

It is simply not the habit of Canadians to appeal to the constitution when it comes to the allocation of government powers. We fetishize the Charter of Rights, but the older parts of the constitution are typically treated with explicit disregard. In the carbon tax debate there is a total inattention to any notion of a most-appropriate locus for carbon policy. Almost no one who favours a strongly enforced carbon price will say that provinces should have them but that the federal government has no right to impose one on everybody. And certainly nobody who thinks climate change is a big scam will ever concede that Ottawa nonetheless has right on its side in the legal case.