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As the Supreme Court appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, liberals are left wondering what more could have been done to protect it, with some questioning whether its easier to get Democrats to fight for a particular constitutional right or policy change than to defend one.

Activists are experienced at advocating for policies they believe are crucial to improving Americans quality of life, from universal health care to student loan relief and affordable housing. Many have pushed to advance those items with support from a vocal bloc of liberal lawmakers.

But when it comes to defending a womans right to choose a court assurance that has been on the books since the early 1970s the party has struggled to make traction before the draft majority decision leaked last month exposed a major threat.

In general, progressives embrace aspirational policy because they come from communities with long-running inequities and disparities, said one Democratic aide who advises left-wing members of Congress.

As a politician, if you defend the status quo, when the people you represent feel left behind by status quo policy, then youre likely going to be outflanked.

A closely watched congressional primary runoff in Texas this week was a good case study. The last standing House Democrat opposed to abortion, Rep. Henry Cuellar, declared victory by fewer than 200 votes against progressive attorney Jessica Cisneros, who hasnt yet conceded due to outstanding ballots.

Cuellars anti-abortion rights stance was not enough for Democratic voters to resoundingly reject him. Moreover, he has the full support of House leadership, with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) making calls on his behalf.

In the end, the issue doesnt appear to have been a massive factor in the race.

Some behavioral scholars, however, say that the fear of having something taken away can be a driving force in peoples decision making.

In general, psychological research suggests that human beings are prone to negativity bias that is, we react more strongly to negative developments than to positive developments of the same intensity, said Christopher Federico, a psychology and political science professor at the University of Minnesota. Even when a negative event and positive event are of the same magnitude, the negative event will affect our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors more strongly than the positive event.

Federico said that phenomenon is evident regarding abortion.

The threat of disliked policy changes is more politically motivating than the prospective of liked policy changes,hesaid. This would lead us to predict that the looming threat to abortion rights will eventually motivate more political involvement than the other issues where the focus is on obtaining a policy gain over and above the status quo.

A similar scenario played out just a few years back. When Republicans were working to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA),activists led the fighton keeping it intact, including activating a new base of supporters.

Defending the ACA from being gutted was a big part of our early history as a movement, said Emily Phelps, national press secretary at Indivisible, a grassroots organization that came of age during that time.

Some priorities, however, are easier to champion than others.

After back-to-back mass shootings in Buffalo, N.Y. and Uvalde, Texas, advocates and Democrats on Capitol Hill again called for measures to restrict the harm caused by firearms. But its unclear if anything can pass the 50-50 Senate. A pair of moderate senators remain opposed to ending the filibuster, leaving some to feel already defeated.

In the Cuellar race, leadership supported the candidate with an A rating from the NRA, further muddying the issue.

There is a chasm between what Democrats say they will fight for and what theyll do, said Angelo Greco, a progressive communications operative. Gun reform, abortion, minimum wage.

On the one hand you have leadership saying we must do everything possible to protect a womans right to choose, yet they were doing robocalls for an anti-choice, pro-NRA Democrat in Texas.

Republicans, on the flip side, have long used their bases enthusiasm for gun rights to notch electoral gains.

Theres arguably no perfect parallel to an issue that inspires Democrats as strongly. They have, however, seen signs of traction on desired policy changes.

The push to partially cancel student loan debt has been a focus for many on the left who believe it can be achieved before November. They say that Biden has the authority to forgive at least some federal loans for borrowers by using his executive action authority, rather than relying on Congress.

As recently asthis week, White House officials said they are looking carefully into what can be done from the Oval Office. If some cancellation happens, progressives are expected to take a victory lap.

And other wishful fights also inspire the partys base.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) first rose to national prominence by campaigning on a progressive platform that included Medicare for All and raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. While neither has materialized, they remain critical to the discussion about Democrats direction and ideology, and progressives see them as helping move the party left. While Biden never pushed for universal health care, he ran as the Democratic presidential nominee on a $15 minimum wage, a policy that some believe helped him edge out Trump.

Democrats have also seen success on unions. Biden pledged to be staunchly pro-union in office, and under his administration a variety of aligned organizations such as the Democratic National Committee and the DemocraticCongressional Campaign Committeehave unionized. Pelosi says she supports congressional staffers long-stated desire to form a union.

The fight to protect abortion has been much murkier.

Voters are just waking up to the fact that the Republican campaign to end legal abortion was not just campaign rhetoric,Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood who co-chairs the Democratic firm American Bridge, told The Hill.

Voters have their own personal feelings about abortion and dont believe it is right for government and politicians to intervene in personal decisions about pregnancy, she said.That is true across geography, party and background.

Polling suggests the leak has not dramatically changed public opinion. A majority of Americans are in favor of Democrats attitudes over abortion, according to a new Reuters/Ipsospollreleased this week.

But when considering how likely the issue is to move voters, especially ahead of the midterms, some Democrats are more skeptical.

Is it easy? In rhetoric, yes, said Greco. But whos actually putting it all on the line for the policy fights?

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Liberals find it can be easier to fight for causes than defend them - The Hill

Former Supreme Court Justice Louise Arbour, second from right, releases the final report of an independent review into sexual misconduct in the Canadian military, in Ottawa on May 30, 2022. Also in attendance is Minister of National Defence Anita Anand, Chief of the Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre and Deputy Minister of National Defence Bill Matthews.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

The story Louise Arbour tells about the militarys handling of sexual misconduct is a tale of an insular organization so resistant to change and outside ideas that it needs external actors to monitor its behaviour on many levels.

That goes beyond moving the prosecution of criminal sexual offences to the civilian justice system to having the Canadian Human Rights Commission handle cases of sexual harassment in the military, appointing an external monitor to review progress in the Canadian Armed Forces, and maybe even scrapping Canadas military colleges.

Thats needed, Ms. Arbour tells us, because the military has a long history of responding to reports and recommendations with a flurry of activity that ticks off boxes to claim things are being done, while little real change occurs. That happened after the Somalia inquiry in the 1990s, the former Supreme Court justice reported, and that happened after former Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps delivered a shocking report on sexual misconduct in the military in 2015.

Yet this tale still leaves one wondering about the folks who were supposed to be providing external oversight to the military all along, but didnt: the government. In particular, that means Justin Trudeaus Liberal government and his defence minister from 2015 to 2021, Harjit Sajjan.

Now, it is a good thing Mr. Trudeau seemed to recognize this failing, albeit under the duress of political controversy. His government appointed Ms. Arbour. A new minister, Anita Anand, was tasked with delivering reform.

Better late than never. Maybe.

The problem now is that Mr. Trudeau and his ministers still dont seem to have found the guts to oversee the military. You know beyond rhetoric. It is a basic duty of the government of the day to ensure civilian control of the military, but the Liberals have been too distracted, and too scared, to exert control.

They feared digging into the details of military matters Mr. Sajjan didnt even seem to think it was his job and stirring up disputes with generals that promised more political headaches than rewards. But by now, after a mountain of allegations of sexual misconduct against high-ranking officers, youd think there isnt much choice.

On Monday, it wasnt clear the fear is gone. Or that the pattern that Ms. Arbour decried the military responding with a flurry of activity, and bodies, and paper directives that dont really change much wont be repeated.

Ms. Anand said she accepted all the recommendations in Ms. Arbours report, but she deployed a significant amount of bafflegab to cloud the fact she wasnt actually committing to implement all of them.

She said she would immediately adopt about a third of them, 17, including appointing an external monitor. She said shed ask senior officers and officials for a plan on whether and when the rest can be put into practice. It turns out accepting isnt the same thing as doing.

Handing over complaints of non-criminal sexual harassment in the military to the Human Rights Commission? The brass wont be keen. Ms. Anand didnt commit. Will the government really consider closing the Kingston, Ont., and Saint-Jean, Que., military colleges? General Wayne Eyre, the Chief of the Defence Staff, suggested the brass is aligned with Ms. Arbours report on that. What does that mean? Theyll study it.

Governments dont have to accept every recommendation, of course. But the obfuscation, and vapid claims of alignment, are unsettling signs.

Luckily, Ms. Arbour, sitting beside Ms. Anand and Gen. Eyre at Mondays news conference, made a point of warning against the oft-repeated pattern of delay, deflect and dodge.

One of her recommendations is that Ms. Anand formally declare which recommendations she wont pursue. If something is not going to happen, lets just say it, Ms. Arbour said. She added that she is wary of recommending more oversight bodies because it detracts from the political responsibility of people like Ms. Anand.

That is the crucial element. And at this point, we still have to doubt the political will.

Ms. Anand delivered a seize-the-moment admonition that if things dont change in the Canadian Armed Forces now, Canada might end up with a military that cant fulfill its mission. But thats a warning that she should deliver to her fellow cabinet ministers, and Mr. Trudeau. After all, theyre supposed to be in charge.

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Will the Liberals finally find the guts to oversee the military? - The Globe and Mail

OTTAWA An outspoken critic of the Liberal government's online streaming bill received funding from two of the biggest digital platforms in the world.

Scott Benzie, founder of Digital First Canada, told a parliamentary committee on Monday that his organization, which advocates for online creators, is partly funded by YouTube and TikTok.

The revelation prompted Liberal MP Chris Bittle, parliamentary secretary to Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, to accuse Benzie of having an "extreme conflict of interest."

The MP said representing digital first creators while taking money from the platforms was "almost like starting a union and taking money from management."

Bittle also accused Benzie of concealing that he was funded by the platforms when he appeared before the committee previously.

Benzie, also the executive director of Digital First Canada, told the committee he had informed the Heritage Department he had received funding from platforms.

In an interview on Tuesday, Benzie said he had not tried to conceal that his organization received private funding. He said the money came from a store and the two platforms and totalled "less than $100,000."

"Mr Bittle took that time to attack the organization for something that he already knew and wasn't a secret," Benzie said in an interview. "It's not something that we were trying to hide."

He argued that the MP could have spent the time asking about the content of the bill instead.

Benzie said he set up Digital First Canada before receiving funding earlier this year from the platforms and was "going to do it anyway" and would be "doing this without them."

The advocate has been one of the most vocal critics of Bill C-11, which aims to modernize the Canadian Broadcasting Act to include streaming platforms such as Netflix and YouTube.

He has expressed concerns that the bill and its predecessor, known as C-10 and which failed to pass before the 2021 election, could apply to user-generated content, such as amateur videos posted on YouTube.

His opinions have been cited in the House of Commons by MPs, and the issue of user-generated content has become a central issue in debates about the bill, including in the heritage committee, which is currently scrutinizing C-11.

Benzie is registered to lobby the Heritage Department on legislation that would affect online content creators.

Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said Canada's online creators are "incredibly talented."

"Most of them are self-employed independent workers. Sadly, their livelihoods are in the hands of tech giants, who can deplatform, demonetize, demote or censor their content at will."

Benzie told the committee that most of the advocacy group's funding comes from the Toronto-based Buffer Festival, an annual event showcasing online video creators.

He said he disagreed with tech giants on various issues, including on the topic of more transparency of platforms' algorithms.

Both YouTube and TikTok said Digital First Canada has given a voice to online content creators.

"In both the C-11 and C-10 debate, digital creator voices were barely consulted or considered. Digital First Canada provided a forum to defend and raise their voices," said Lauren Skelly, YouTube spokesperson. "We support their efforts in defending Canadian creators during this critical time."

A spokesperson for TikTok said: "We're proud to support Digital First Canada's advocacy on behalf of independent online creators whose interests aren't otherwise represented by existing guilds or associations."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 31, 2022.

Marie Woolf, The Canadian Press

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Vocal critic of Liberals' online streaming bill partly funded by YouTube and TikTok - Rocky Mountain Outlook - Bow Valley News

Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca holds a rally in Scarborough, Ont., on May 29.Chris Young/The Canadian Press

We can safely predict that the Liberal Party will improve its standing in the Ontario Legislature after the June 2 election. But that may not save its leader, Steven Del Duca. And the party itself could be in serious trouble.

Lets take a look at the electoral landscape in the final days of the campaign.

Pretty much everyone agrees that Doug Fords Progressive Conservatives will form the next government. 338Canada.com, which weights and aggregates polls, had the Conservatives at 38 per cent on Sunday. Philippe J. Fournier, who runs the site, projects a Conservative majority government of better than 80 seats.

The Tories appear likely to dominate in the 905, the band of suburban seats surrounding Toronto, named after their area code. A virtual sweep of the 905 just about guarantees any party a win.

With 27 per cent of the popular vote, the Liberals are ahead of the New Democrats, who have 23 per cent. But the 338Canada projections have the NDP taking 25 seats and the Liberals only taking 15, enough to achieve party status in the legislature, which they lost after the past election, but still a distant third-place result.

Thats because the NDP vote tends to concentrate in city centres and in Northern Ontario, while the Liberal vote is more evenly spread out. This makes things both frustrating and tantalizing for the Liberals.

The NDP vote is highly efficient in the 20-25 per cent range. Thats why it can surpass the Liberals at this point, Mr. Fournier told me. However, the NDP vote is highly inefficient in the 25-30 per cent range, unlike the Liberals.

If the Liberals could manage to win a few more points in the popular vote, vote splits at the riding level could start to work in their favour. They could steal a bunch of seats from the PCs, form the Official Opposition and maybe even deprive Conservative Leader Doug Ford of a majority government.

But unless they can pull off that surge, the Liberals appear doomed to languish in third place in the seat count, again.

There is more worrying news for the Grits. Mr. Del Duca seeks to enter the legislature through the 905 riding of VaughanWoodbridge, which he once held. But he was defeated in the previous election by 8,000 votes, and the 338Canada riding projection has it as a toss-up.

Coming third in the seat count and losing his own riding could cost Mr. Del Duca the leadership.

Since this is Andrea Horwaths fourth campaign as leader of the NDP, both opposition parties might be replacing leaders. If so, which party would be more likely to unseat the Progressive Conservatives could depend on which leader each party chose.

For most of the provinces history, the Liberals have been one of the two governing parties, along with the Progressive Conservatives. Most recently, they governed for 15 years under premiers Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne.

But the NDP formed a government in 1990 under Bob Rae. It is currently the Official Opposition. After June 2, it could be the Official Opposition again. If so, anyone who wants to donate to the progressive political party most likely to unseat the Tories would have good reason to send that money to the NDP rather than the Liberals.

This portrait of Liberal woes may be undeservedly bleak. As my colleague Jeff Gray reports, the Liberal Leader has done a good job of paying down the partys debt and establishing a solid platform. If the Grits win back party status, and if Mr. Del Duca can find a way to get himself into the legislature, he could continue to lead the party and that party could reassert itself as the governing alternative to the PCs.

But the strength of the Liberal Party, in any province or nationally, is also its weakness. It caters to a broad coalition of voters, grouped on either side of the political centre and committed to pragmatic, responsible, mildly progressive government.

But that coalition is always at risk of evaporating, if voters decide they want either a more emphatically progressive or emphatically conservative alternative.

Either with Mr. Del Duca or with someone else, the Liberals need to get back in the game. Otherwise, voters might forget about them altogether.

Want to hear more about the Ontario election from our journalists? Subscribe to Vote of Confidence, a twice-weekly newsletter dedicated to the key issues in this campaign, landing in your inbox starting May 17 until election day on June 2.

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The future of the Ontario Liberals is at stake on June 2 - The Globe and Mail

Pressed on why the Liberal Party had failed to resonate with many female voters, Ley said that women didnt hear much of what we were saying.

Newly elected deputy Liberal Party leader Sussan Ley said she wanted to have honest conversations with women after female voters abandoned the party.Credit:James Brickwood.

They didnt believe, perhaps, that we were focusing enough on them and their lives. But again, many women actually did support us and Ive heard from many of those women and in my regional electorate of Farrer, I had a 7 per cent to party swing towards me.

Labors ranks have swelled by an extra six women, taking their total female-held seats to 35. At the same time, women in the Liberal Party now hold just 9 seats, down from 13 in the last parliament.

The Senate tipped over half female representation during the last term of parliament, but has boosted its ranks further. It will have 57 per cent women once the new senators take their seats in July.

Labor has had quotas for female representation in winnable seats since the mid-1990s with the level ratcheted up over time, while the Liberal Party has had a long-held resistance to quotas.

Asked whether she would advocate for quotas for women, Ley said it was a matter for the partys state divisions as she indicated she was open to discussing quotas with merit.

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Quotas on their own sometimes overlook the issue of merit. You only have to look at the women in our party to know that merit played a very strong role in all of their presence in this building, she said.

Senior Liberal senator Anne Ruston said the partys wide-ranging review into its election loss would examine why voters abandoned the party but said more could be done to support women to run for office.

Affirmative action to make sure that weve got broad diversity in the party is very important as we rebuild because we are the alternative government, she said.

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Record number of women in the 47th parliament, as female voters shun Liberals - Sydney Morning Herald