MONTREAL—The Oct. 21 election had barely been called when the issue of Quebec’s contentious secularism legislation first surfaced.

Since then the law that forbids police officers, prison guards, provincial judges and prosecutors as well as public school teachers to wear religious vestments or symbols at work has consumed more and more of the campaign conversation.

The issue has prompted the adoption of municipal resolutions in places as distant from Quebec as Calgary.

At Monday’s English-language televised debate, more time was spent on Bill 21 — as the provincial legislation is commonly known — than on Alberta’s economic travails or Canada’s currently acrimonious relationship with China.

The debate discussion prompted Quebec premier François Legault to wade into the campaign to again demand that the federal parties in general and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau in particular “not stand in the way of the will of Quebecers” on secularism.

The issue is bound to come up again in Thursday’s final French-language debate.

Given all that, one could be forgiven to believe that the ultimate fate of the controversial Quebec law hangs in the balance of the Oct. 21 federal vote.

As it happens, it does not.

Regardless of who leads the next federal government, the fate of Bill 21 will be decided in the courts and not in the House of Commons.

Two different challenges are already making their way through the Quebec court system. There are likely more in the pipeline.

The province’s Court of Appeal will soon rule on whether the application of the most contentious sections of Bill 21 should be suspended until its constitutionality has been validated.

Should the court agree to suspend the legislation, it could be years before it is ever applied.

Somewhat ironically, under that scenario, Legault’s government itself could find it in its interest to shorten the delays involved in getting a decisive ruling by having the federal government refer the matter directly to the Supreme Court.

One way or another, it is a virtual certainty that at some point in time Bill 21 will end up on the top court docket. (Given the normally glacial pace of the Canadian court system, that could take longer than the political lifespan of the three main leaders who have been sparring about how a federal government led by their party would hypothetically approach the issue.)

But assuming the top court is seized of the matter over the tenure of the next federal government, the odds are that Ottawa — under any party and notwithstanding their current rhetoric — would jump into the fray.

Trudeau’s position, that he will not rule out — should the Liberals be re-elected to government — joining a challenge against Bill 21, is only an outlier when compared to Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer and the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh’s hands-off stances.

In fact, the Liberal leader’s position reflects what has been standard practice not only for the federal government but also for its Quebec counterpart.

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In the past, both levels of government have intervened — as a matter of course — in court challenges that have revolved around the extent of their respective constitutional jurisdictions or that of Charter rights.

On that basis, the Legault government is currently an intervener in support of British Columbia in the latter’s attempt to have its authority to limit the amount of fossil fuel that transits through the province affirmed, and in support of various Conservative premiers in the legal battle they have waged against the federal carbon tax.

The expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline is not happening anywhere near Legault’s political backyard and his government is supportive of the principle of carbon pricing, but it is Quebec’s contention that there is a federal infringement on provincial rights in the making in each case.

Given all that, Scheer’s categorical assertion that a Conservative government would forever remain on the sidelines of a Bill 21 challenge has to be taken with a big grain of salt.

And Singh’s recent musings about the possible necessity for an NDP federal government to join the battle at the Supreme Court level are less a flip-flop than a belated attempt to realign his position with the responsibilities of any party in federal power.

It would be quite a precedent for a federal government of any political stripe to decline to stand its constitutional ground in the top court.

When it comes to Bill 21, the Bloc Québécois along with Legault are mostly tilting at windmills for political gain.

The law is popular and there is potential mileage to be had on Oct. 21 and beyond by looking to be standing up for Quebec’s autonomy.

But to do so they are applying a double standard.

They would have the next prime minister renounce a legal option that no Quebec premier would ever forego.

And they would be the first to vehemently denounce the notion that the will of a provincial majority should be the last word on the rights of minorities if another province applied that rule to French-language rights.

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

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