OTTAWA — Premier Doug Ford took pointed aim at the federal Liberals on Thursday over Ottawa’s recent suggestion of limits on the ability of legislatures to invoke the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause.

The notwithstanding clause gives provincial legislatures or Parliament the ability to pass legislation that effectively overrides provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but only for a five-year period.

In a filing to the Supreme Court of Canada in a case on Quebec’s secularism law, Ottawa argues the constitutional limits of the notwithstanding clause preclude it from being used “to distort or annihilate” the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the charter.

In a Sept. 18 statement about the federal intervention, Justice Minister Sean Fraser, who is also attorney general, said

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