The premier of Quebec was at his Elmer Gantry best in his speech to the law faculty of the University of Montreal Thursday, accusing Ottawa of "imperialism" for daring to ask the Supreme Court whether Quebec could destroy the country without also violating one or two provisions of the Constitution. As Bouchard would have it, "the federal government says it will have the last word by virtue of a Constitution that is without democratic foundation and which will be interpreted by a court that it has itself nominated." But the federal government is not the only party that will be pleading its case when the historic reference opens Monday. Among the dozen or so intervenors who have filed briefs, from individuals to advocacy groups to provinces, is the Northwest Territories, which notes that Quebec's plans for secession include making off with several offshore islands that currently belong to the NWT -- or Nunavut, as the eastern half is soon to be known.

The territories would like some assurance from the court that this sort of piracy would not be permitted.

But what is the law, compared to the sovereign will of the people? How dare the territories conspire against the democratic verdict of Quebecers? As Bouchard put it, "the last word belongs to Quebec democracy, to the Quebec people." If Quebecers vote to annex Baffin Island, or if they fancy a slice of Labrador, that is all there is to it: the people have spoken. As separatists and their fellow travellers, from the Quebec Liberal party to the federal Conservatives, are fond of saying, these are political questions, not legal questions.

If this sounds like satire, it is not. It is no sillier for Quebec to assert the right to nibble off bits of neighbouring territories by the mere virtue of having formally stated this desire at the ballot box than it is to claim title to Quebec itself on this basis. I do not mean here only the two-thirds of the province that was ceded to Quebec in the early years of this century by acts of parliament. I mean the whole thing, the big poutine, every square inch of which is sovereign territory of Canada.

Just because you say you want something doesn't mean you get to have it.

You can't vote yourself possession of something that doesn't belong to you.

And if you try, then those whom you would despoil, from the Cree in northern Quebec to minority groups in the province's urban centres to the people of Canada as a whole, are perfectly within their rights to try to stop you.

The law in this regard is not the instrument of federal imperialism: it is not the means by which the strong suppress the weak. On the contrary, it is the only means of settling disputes that offers any hope to those who, if it were only a matter of "might makes right," would inevitably find themselves in the wrong. That is as valuable an assurance to Quebecers as it is to anyone else. If, say, the people of New York were to vote by a majority of 95 per cent to annex the Beauce, it would be impeccably democratic. It would still be unlawful, and it would still be wrong.

Ultimately, the division between legal questions and political questions is a false one. We live within the law because we choose to: because the rule of law is infinitely preferable, for most people, to the rule of the gun, or the rule of the mob, or whatever other rules replace it.

Now, perhaps the people of Quebec are so disaffected, so bent down under the yoke of federal "imperialism" that they would be willing in their millions to step outside the protective embrace of the rule of law just to escape this prison called Canada. If that is true, then indeed the law probably could not stop them. But we will never know if they are not at least informed of what the law says about secession, and of what the consequences of ignoring it would be. So is hardly in anyone's interest to prevent the Supreme Court from ruling.

This understanding of the role the law can play in the debate on secession must be distinguished from, on the one hand, the notion that the law, to be effective, must be "enforced," and, on the other, the federal government's position, that so far as the law posed any barrier to secession, it would shortly be changed to allow it.

It is a barrier, and should be. But it is one, I am convinced, Quebecers themselves would choose to leave in place.