Cannabis : A liberal mp wants to allow the random testing

Photo from the archives, Sarah-Maude Lefebvre
Nicola Di Iorio

Christopher Nardi

Tuesday, 23 January 2018 18:38

UPDATE
Tuesday, 23 January 2018 18:42

Look at this article

OTTAWA-A liberal mp and federal guru of the highway safety hopes that its government will enable businesses to do the randomized drug testing from their employees after the legalization of cannabis.

“The random testing is permitted in the United States, but they are not in Canada because of restrictions on the right to privacy. As a promoter of road safety, I say : the right to life prevails over the right to privacy,” said the deputy Nicola Di Iorio in an interview with The Newspaper after a meeting with heads of major companies in the trucking industry.

To this day, legal jurisprudence indicates that the random testing of drugs by an employer contravenes generally to the Charter of rights and freedoms of the person. As a result, companies are extremely limited in their powers to request a test from an employee, and can usually only do it only when they have several clues which demonstrate that the worker was impaired.

However, as Mr. Di Iorio and the Association du camionnage du Québec (ACQ) are of the same opinion : when cannabis will be legal, it will be critical to enable employers to test their employees. For the moment, the federal government has not pronounced officially on the issue.

For his part, the spokesman of the ACQ, Marc Cadieux, argues that any trucker who drives between Canada and the United States must already submit to random testing, according to american law.

Applied everywhere

In addition to the trucking industry, Mr. Di Iorio believes that the possibility of drug testing random should apply in any company that has a zero-tolerance policy for drugs and who works with the public.

“As a citizen, as a speaker and as a member of parliament, I am of the opinion that we can do more. The prohibition on random testing dates back to 25 years […] We adopt, currently a law to legalize cannabis, and it needs to be heard the voice of the public in the folder of the screening,” continues the mp, who is also a lawyer in the labour law.

No question that it is the employer who collects the data, he adds. According to him, the ideal would be that companies must turn to independent laboratories to test their employees. So, if any trace of drugs is detected, no personal information is provided to the employer.