DRUG TESTING SCHEME IS ALL ABOUT STIGMA

The latest crackdown on welfare by the Harris government leaves much
to be desired as good social policy. By requiring welfare recipients
to undergo testing and treatment for drug and alcohol addiction and
literacy in order to receive cheques, the Tories are opening a
hornet's nest of problems involving ethics, legality, fairness and
practicality. Ontario is heading down a path that no other province
has seen fit to take. The question is: Why? Social Services Minister
John Baird is trying to portray mandatory testing as an enlightened
move to help recipients overcome problems that prevent them from
finding jobs. In reality, we believe it has more to do with improving
the government's sliding political fortunes. As much as Baird claims
to be acting out of compassion for people on social assistance, the
evidence suggests the government is more interested in catering to
people who support harsh restrictions on welfare.

In November, when Baird unveiled the drug testing plan, he grabbed
syringes from a box and threw them on a table. By choosing the most
offensive image he could find, "the instruments of despair," Baird was
stigmatizing recipients of social assistance as people who represent
society's underclass and get more help than necessary. A negative
stereotype makes it easier to sell a mandatory testing and treatment
policy that is dubious at best and mean-spirited at worst.

This isn't to excuse the damage that results from drug and alcohol
dependency. It is hard to imagine the hardship of family situations
where children go without while recipients use social benefits to
support a drug habit. However, most experts in addiction say that
welfare recipients with alcohol and drug addictions, or problems with
reading and writing, are more likely to benefit from enhanced
treatment and training programs than a punitive approach. Respected
authorities believe that trying to force recipients to change their
habit doesn't work. To deny benefits is to run the risk of more petty
crime, more homelessness and more desperation among the poorest of the
poor -- the single mothers and children who are a large part of the
welfare rolls.

There are problems at every turn with the government's hard line. It
is not at all clear that coercive testing and treatment will survive a
court challenge as a violation of human rights. People in the
addiction field say there isn't any evidence that drug and alcohol
dependency is more pervasive among welfare recipients than any other
class in society. Ontario's privacy commissioner is concerned about an
unwarranted invasion of privacy and potential abuses of confidential
medical information.

There are other major flaws in the plan, including a shortage of
treatment, counselling and literacy programs. Long waiting lists are
an obstacle for people who are seeking help. Threatening to cut people
off is a simplistic approach that doesn't recognize the complexity of
substance abuse and the need for programs that will support a recovery.

Mandatory testing and treatment belongs in storage, not social policy.
The Tories should stop to think about screening welfare recipients for
drugs, alcoholism and literacy but not applying the same tests to all
other groups who receive public money.

Then again, few targets are easier for this government to attack than
the people who struggle on the margins of society.