Given the Supreme Court ruling, the role of precedent in Canadian law, and the overall legal climate, it was very likely that any challenges to legalize same-sex marriage in the remaining four jurisdictions would be successful as well. Federal lawyers had ceased to contest such cases, and only Alberta's Conservative provincial government remained officially opposed. Alberta Premier Ralph Klein threatened to invoke the notwithstanding clause of the "Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms" to avoid having to comply with the ruling, which would have been constitutional but which had become politically unacceptable.