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Short answer: Not much. It’s certainly not the rule book of the Commons or even the rules of political civility. So why not the Constitution, too?

The word “extremism” was being thrown around Parliament Hill a lot on Tuesday, in what looked to be a contest between Justin Trudeau and Poilievre over who was more extreme.

One thing is clear. What’s happening in politics is extreme, or as Liberal House leader Steven MacKinnon said on Tuesday, certainly “not banal.” Moreover, it’s the nastiest antipathy we’ve ever seen on display between Liberals and Conservatives, and that’s saying something.

In January 2006, with imminent victory in his sights, then-Conservative leader Stephen Harper sought to reassure Canadians that his future government would be kept in check by the Liberal-leaning courts, public service and Senate.

Today, we might call Harper’s words the stuff of deep-state conspiracy. Poilievre, unleashed, merely calls Justin Trudeau a “wacko” — the word that got him ejected from the House, when he refused to withdraw it.

Poilievre doesn’t do apologies — he doubles down. Moreover, currently soaring in the polls, he clearly doesn’t feel he needs to offer any assurances about future checks on the power he sees within his grasp. Just the opposite, in fact.

In his Monday speech to the Canadian Police Association, Poilievre broadly hinted he was willing to use the Constitution’s opting-out provision to pass laws that go against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

“All of my proposals are constitutional,” he said. “We will make them constitutional, using whatever tools the Constitution allows me to use to make them constitutional. I think you know exactly what I mean.”

Then, in a somewhat Orwellian twist, the Conservative leader insisted this was more democratic.

“I will be the democratically elected prime minister, democratically accountable to the people, and they can then make the judgments themselves on whether they think my laws are constitutional.”

It’s been a while since I studied the Constitution in school, but I’m pretty sure that’s a classic example of what the books called “tyranny of the majority,” which leads to the rights of minorities getting trampled.

Also, speaking of tyranny, what’s with the “my laws” thing?

Poilievre and his team bristle when Trudeau and the Liberals link them to the rise of authoritarian populist leaders. Perhaps their leader should stop talking like one.

Also in the realm of tyranny — now that’s a phrase I never thought I’d be including in daily political coverage — it was the Conservatives accusing Liberals of being tyrants for Poilievre’s ouster from the Commons. Poilievre, typically and unapologetically,  that he had been ejected for calling Trudeau’s drug policy “wacko.” That is incorrect. He was ejected for calling the prime minister a “wacko,” which is not parliamentary and possibly not even in the schoolyard-recess rule book.

Theoretically, Poilievre would have the power to use the notwithstanding clause, although the federal government has never used it. Provinces have — increasingly so in recent years — but it’s still risky, as Premier Doug Ford discovered when he tried to rein in the right to strike in Ontario.

Ford, unlike Poilievre, knows when to back down — in that case, with a striking teachers’ union. What would Poilievre do if there was public backlash to him using the notwithstanding clause in some future Conservative-led 91ԭ��? I suspect we know and it doesn’t involve backing down.

Overconfidence is Poilievre’s kryptonite — it leads to bad judgment calls. Just last week, in a fit of spontaneous hubris, the Conservative leader decided to pull his car over in New Brunswick to mix and mingle with folks waving “F— Trudeau” flags and sporting a far-right symbol on their trailer. A good time was reportedly had by all.

There is so much that is troubling about these displays of his overconfidence. It’s become quite common to say that Poilievre’s Conservative party isn’t your father’s Conservative party. It’s not even Harper’s Conservative party. Harper would grumble or sulk about critical media; Poilievre bullies or mocks reporters in public. Like it or not, the media also act as guardrails of accountability in politics too, and we’re seeing what Poilievre makes of that.

What we’ve seen this week about Poilievre, the unleashed version, goes beyond bad behaviour and into what he thinks about the discipline of power. Once again, the answer is “not much.”

Poilievre believes voters will tell him what he should do when it comes to respecting the law and the Constitution. With more displays like this, they just might.