Friday Morning Links

Assorted content to end your week.

- Since the Cons don't seem to have much else in their quiver at the moment, I'm sure they'll keep trying to pretend that it's monstrous of Thomas Mulcair to suggest that all industries (including those in Alberta) pay the cost of their real environmental impact. But the sales pitch isn't getting any easier when the people who meet Mulcair without a partisan agenda react like this:

(L)ocal leaders and businesses have been more measured in replying to Mr. Mulcair than rival politicians, and avoided any inflammatory language after Thursday's visit.

“In my opinion, it was a productive discussion. We outlined some of the challenges we face and discussed Suncor’s approach to responsibly develop this resource in a manner that also respects communities and stakeholders,” Suncor said in an e-mail statement attributed to Mark Little, its executive vice-president of oil sands.

Melissa Blake, mayor of the local Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, spent half an hour with Mr. Mulcair at her Fort McMurray office Thursday morning.

They agreed on the need for environmental oversight in the region. “Nobody in the province is disagreeing with that,” Ms. Blake told The Globe and Mail afterward.

- Meanwhile, if there is common recognition of the need for oil-sands development to be environmentally responsible, the news of mercury contamination in the area surely signals that the Cons are failing utterly in that goal.

- And the Cons' efforts to build an enemies list elsewhere are receiving due criticism as well - with Randy Hoback's McCarthyism rightly getting highlighted as an example.

- Having hinted at the idea myself I'm glad to see the Canadian Medical Association calling for policies to be assessed for their effects on health.

- And finally, it shouldn't come as much shock that more onerous IP legislation is all about boosting corporate profits rather than actually generating innovation. But in case we needed confirmation, Eduardo Porter provides it.