Last month, after the federal government filed its factum with the Supreme Court in the case of English Montreal School Board v. Attorney General of Quebec , Justice Minister Sean Fraser stood accused by a Bloc Québécois MP of wanting to rewrite the Constitution.

"On the contrary, we do not want to change the Constitution," Fraser said . "We want to give the Supreme Court the opportunity to clarify the Constitution."

At the very least, the Supreme Court now has the opportunity to clarify how much, if at all, it wishes to be involved in a renewed and high-stakes debate about the notwithstanding clause — or whether the other actors in our democratic system are going to have to take responsibility for checking use of the clause.

The case involves a challenge to Quebec's Bill 21 , for which the provincial legislature has invoked the notwithstanding clause, one example on an increasingly long list of elected officials reaching in recent years for the escape hatch built into the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Alberta government is reportedly preparing to make new use of the clause this fall.

Going back to 2022 , Justin Trudeau's Liberal government had vowed to formally get involved if or when a challenge to Bill 21 reached the Supreme Court, a commitment that his successor, Mark Carney, adopted in January.