LITTLE SENSE BEHIND DRUG TESTS FOR WELFARE USERS

The only question we need to ask about the Mike Harris government's
announcement of mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients is how much
this waste of time will cost us in legal fees.

About half a million dollars seems a good guess.

Community and Social Services Minister John Baird announced new mandatory
literacy and substance-abuse test and treatment programs for welfare
recipients earlier this week, catering to both the worst and best instincts
of the government.

Mr. Harris did his bit for the worst side, when he said that people simply
shouldn't be allowed to sit around sniffing, smoking and swilling things
while collecting pogey.

If a person refuses to seek treatment for an addiction, he told reporters,
"at that point the taxpayer ceases to have responsibility."

The best aspects could be found in the announcement itself. There will be
some new money for literacy and addiction-treatment programs for welfare
recipients.

The Liberals and NDP can claim to their heart's content that the Tories are
heartless and cruel, but they can't deny that under their governments,
welfare caseloads exploded, while the programs they created to wean people
off state dependency utterly failed.

The Tories, by cutting back benefits and forcing recipients to make at
least a credible stab at finding a job, have halved the rolls in six years.
Does anyone believe either of the other two parties would have done better?

There are only two real reasons to object to the testing and treatment
program. First, no one knows how it would work. Sources report that staff
from the Ontario Human Rights Commission drove themselves to distraction
yesterday trying to get answers from ministry staff. After a year of
consultations, the whiff of the Potemkin village still surrounds the program.

Second, it is probably against the law. The government won't demand blood
or urine samples from welfare recipients. Instead, trained workers will
determine through an interview process whether a welfare recipient is
abusing. A treatment program will then be prescribed. If the accused
refuses to attend, benefits will be cut off.

The government maintains that similar programs have survived court
challenges in several U.S. states. But those states did not have to deal
with the Ontario Human Rights Commission and with Entrop v. Imperial Oil.

The Ontario Human Rights Code bans discrimination on the basis of a
physical disability. The commission defines substance abuse as a
disability, that is, "an illness or disease creating physical disability or
mental impairment and interfering with physical, psychological and social
functioning."

Last year, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the commission's ruling of
abuse-as-disability in the case of a worker who complained that Imperial
Oil's prohibitions against drug and alcohol use in certain jobs were too
restrictive.

Paul Cavalluzzo, who argued on behalf of the Canadian Civil Liberties
Association in the case (he is now commission counsel in the Walkerton
Inquiry), believes the Court of Appeal ruling knocks the stuffing out of
the Tories' plans.

If being addicted is a disability, then a government that cuts you off
welfare because you are addicted is violating its human-rights code.

The Conservatives fought successfully to protect their education reforms,
Bill 160, from a court challenge from teachers unions. A government
spokesman was unable to provide a figure for the bill's legal defence costs
(don't you find that extraordinary?) but several observers guessed that,
whether using in-house or outside counsel, the final tally was probably
around $500,000.

The mandatory test and treatment program will cost at least as much to
defend, and will almost certainly be defeated.

"The whole thing is simply a huge waste of the taxpayers' money," Mr.
Cavalluzzo said. Mr. Baird would do well to scrap the legislation and spend
the legal-defence money on treatment programs. Volunteer ones.