TRANSIT
• • TTC managers advise drug tests for staff in ‘safety sensitive’ jobs [ Globe and Mail ]
• TTC staff could face drug testing [ National Post ]
• Practice common outside Canada [ Toronto Sun ]
• TTC has union up in arms [ Toronto Sun ]
• Fuel prices put GO in red [ Toronto Sun ]
ENVIRONMENT
•
• Yes, Virginia, there is a possum in your Parkdale backyard [ Globe and Mail ]
• A mighty wind blows against proposed Bluffs’ turbine farm [ National Post ]
POLITICS
• Mississauga mulls service cuts [ Toronto Star ]
• Hazel’s got her own gold. Crying poor won’t put cities on the election agenda [ Globe and Mail ]
NEIGHBOURHOODS
• It’s a bumpy road to gentrification [ Toronto Star ]
• How do you sell a glass castle in the ghetto? [ Globe and Mail ]
MISCELLANEOUS
•
5 comments
Drug testing is an invasion of privacy, end of story.
If it is going to be implemented, though, it should definitely not be random, nor should it be required before hiring.
The Metrolink crash shows how awesome a responsibility engineers and other transit drivers have. A 12-car GO train on the Milton line using the same Bombardier carriages could have about 1800 people seated aboard.
Not only should testing be enforced by provincial law (GO/TTC) and federal law (VIA/CN/CP) but fatigue studies should be performed on train operators to set a more aggressive limit on work days.
Apparently Metrolink drivers can be on duty for 18 hours as long as only 12 are spent driving – I’d like to know what limits GO must follow for its operators as well as the CN, CP and VIA trains it shares track with.
Drug testing is an ugly thing and very invasive. It seems to be very pervasive in the US, but the last thing I’d want to see is for everyone to have to piss in a cup before you can get a job at Tim Hortons.
HOWEVER, if it turns out that the Tim Hortons employee comes to work drunk or high, they’re just going to do their job poorly and get fired. The chances of anyone being hurt are quite small. If a transit vehicle operator comes to work drunk or high, the chances of people dying are pretty good.
That’s why it should be allowable, but only for people in jobs that put them in a position of responsibility for others’ safety.
Sorry, everyone working with public safety should have no privacy with respect to drugs or alcohol. Drivers should have no union protections at all, but at the very lest they should be on an especially stringent drug testing regime. Preferably several times a shift, given recent problems with drivers drinking on shift. Hopefully they fire lots of drivers
If TTC operators are required to be subjected to alcohol/drug testing prior to taking a vehicle out on the road, why should ALL other drivers be exempt. Witness the incident this past weekend where an intoxicated driver drove the wrong way on Hwy. 403 and killed two people when he drove head-on into their car. I say implement alcohol/drug testing for all motorists!