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Between passing laws that aren’t constitutional and striking down laws that are, the two have already succeeded in doing immense damage, not only to their own reputations, but to democracy and the rule of law. But it seems almost certain to get worse.

In the past, one might have accused governments of drafting legislation they knew to be unconstitutional, hoping to bask in any short-term popular approval — for what is popular and what is lawful are not always the same — while leaving the Court to clean up the constitutional mess afterward. But the current government’s rhetoric, as much as its record, suggests it has something else in mind: a deliberate strategy of confrontation.

It is hard to escape the feeling it is baiting the Court, daring it to take one step too far. And the Court, for its part, seems only too willing to oblige. For all the Harper government’s efforts to undermine its credibility, the Court, with its recent string of rulings, has done its best to undermine it on its own.

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Even so, I can’t imagine the government would think it would win a straight-up battle for popular opinion with the Court. The percentages don’t support an explanation rooted in simple partisan advantage-seeking. Rather, I think it is aiming for a much larger target: the Charter.

It is no secret that many Conservatives have long chafed at the notion that acts of Parliament should be subject to constitutional override. It wasn’t the Court’s judgment they questioned — it was the whole concept of judicial review. For these Conservatives, the remedy, short of abolishing the Charter, has always been the notwithstanding clause: Section 33, allowing governments to pass legislation in defiance of the Charter, provided they declare openly they are doing so, and with the stipulation that the legislation must be renewed every five years to remain in effect.