Admit it: You don't take the Ontario government's fight to get more money out of Ottawa seriously.

It's Liberals battling Liberals. It's Dalton McGuinty, who's not exactly the kind of person you'd be afraid to meet in a dark alley, up against Paul Martin, who'd be too scared to go into the alley in the first place. It's conveniently timed to coincide with a provincial budget that's going to be another tough sell, giving it the look of a public relations exercise. And hey, it's Ontario, where provincialist fervour is virtually non-existent.

It's the natural reaction. But it's not one you're likely to have after talking to the people at Queen's Park.

If the McGuinty Liberals weren't prepared to go the wall on this campaign, they wouldn't have created a position in the Premier's office to manage it full-time. (Tellingly, the posting is temporarily being filled by Andrew Steele - a hard-nosed campaign veteran who most recently helped run the Liberal war room in the 2003 election; a long-term replacement is expected to be named shortly.)

If they weren't serious about this spat, they wouldn't be making it the focal point of government communications - including Mr. McGuinty's speech on Wednesday night at the Heritage Dinner, the biggest provincial Liberal fundraiser of the year and one of the Premier's best chances to get his message out to Bay Street.

And certainly, there wouldn't be a contingent of them - not to mention their counterparts in the Martin camp - fretting about the impact this is going to have on the Liberal brand name in Ontario.

You can disagree with their methods. You can question their numbers (as the Martinites have with the claim that Ontario sends $23-billion more to Ottawa every year than it gets back). You can complain that they're abandoning Ontario's traditional role as a federal-provincial uniter. But you can't dispute that they're deadly serious.

The McGuinty Liberals contend that they initially did their part to play nice with Ottawa, only to be greeted with indifference in return. Then the Prime Minister cut an absurdly generous equalization deal with two Atlantic provinces, which had the simultaneous effects of endorsing Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams' hardball tactics and skewing the equalization formula even more against Ontario.

Mr. McGuinty won't be ripping down Canadian flags any time soon. But key to his strategy is awakening the sort of provincialist passion that premiers in Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland - and, well, just about every other province - take for granted.

How he'll achieve it is something of a mystery. But the basic strategy is to convince Ontarians their fiscal loyalty should lie with their province, that the province is getting robbed and, most important of all, that Mr. McGuinty is the best man to stop the larceny.

It's something the Premier will need to get done in short order. This entire exercise revolves around the near certainty that the next federal election will come well before the next provincial one, increasing the likelihood that the Martinites - counting on making gains in Ontario - will blink first. But as things stand, the Ontario public probably isn't engaged enough to make that happen.

Then again, this is Paul Martin we're talking about - a prime minister so conflict-averse that he's spent his first 15 months in office throwing money at the provinces in hope of keeping them quiet. So you can't fault Mr. McGuinty for taking his chances.

The Ontario Premier may not be an intimidating figure. But then again, neither is Danny Williams. Having dared Mr. Martin to meet him in a dark alley, he's betting the PM won't show up.

You have to like his odds.