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w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m F e b r u A r y 2 0 1 5 37 a requirement that women seeking fully funded abortions in that province have the approval of two doctors (to cer- tify that the procedure was "medically necessary"). But Maritimers like Amy Sakalauskas continue to pressure N.B., and other governments: "Abortion access is especially difficult on the East Coast," says Sakalauskas, a child protection law- yer for the province of Nova Scotia. "Those laws need to go." A similar two-physician restric- tion still holds in neighbouring Prince Edward Island. The lobby group Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada hailed the decision in a press release, but demanded that New Brunswick also repeal "a second restrictive regulation that denies public funding to private clinics providing medically required services. This is prohibited by Health Canada." The Medical Services Payment Act, Chapter M-7, s. 2.01, states, "the medical services plan shall not provide payment for . . . entitled services fur- nished in a private hospital facility in the Province." ARCC also wants hospitals to accept self-referrals (as many women do not have a family doctor), and negotiate a reciprocal billing agreement with women from P.E.I. seeking fully funded abortions. For Clayton Ruby, of Ruby Shiller Chan Hasan, rights should be extended beyond humans. Lucy the elephant lives in an Alberta zoo, and her allies say she is alone, miserable, and ill-treated. Elephants, however, are not entitled to constitutional protection. Ruby says humans should be granted the legal right to speak for the mistreated crea- tures who cannot speak for themselves. Ruby wants an expansion of "public interest standing," to "allow an ordinary citizen to raise animal cruelty concerns when the government will not." MINING LAW E xactly how important is fertilizer to Canadian identity? Chad Eggerman, a partner at Miller Thomson in Saskatoon, wants to tighten up the Investment Canada Act, which gained widespread atten- tion when Saskatchewan's premier demanded a foreign-owned company be blocked from purchasing a control- ling interest in PotashCorp. The act allows the government to decide if a foreign investment is of a "net benefit" for Canada. Under that definition, a Conservative government could make a decision that was the exact opposite of a previous Liberal government's, yet both could claim alle- giance to the act's intent. With foreign companies flaunting big money — $400 million to start — say they (and their bankers) want certainty when planning an investment, seeking to conform to clear and specific laws before shovelling even huger sums into a project. Eggerman says foreign companies want to decouple politics from compli- ance with the law. "It's a critical piece of law in the country, and no one really knows what it means or says. It was intentionally drafted to lack certainty." Somehow, that does seem very . . . Canadian. LEXPERT.ca is the online destination for authoritative information about Canada's business of law. INTRODUCING THE NEW AND ENHANCED Bookmark the new LEXPERT.ca for updates on Big Deals/Suits, People Moves and articles of interest appearing in Lexpert ® Magazine. Find information about Canada's leading Lexpert-ranked lawyers and law firms through the site's enhanced navigation and search functionality. Visit LEXPERT.ca Untitled-1 1 2015-01-20 1:38 PM

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