TORIES REINTRODUCE WELFARE DRUG TESTING PLAN

Drug, Alcohol Addicted Welfare Recipients Face Mandatory Treatment
From Canadian Press

A controversial plan to test Ontario's poorest residents for drug and
alcohol addictions was resurrected Thursday, angering social and
poverty activists who vehemently criticized the scheme when it was
first proposed last year.

Social Services Minister John Baird detailed a five-point action plan
to overhaul the welfare system, the hallmark a new measure that would
force addicted welfare recipients to submit to treatment in order to
get cheques.

''Our program will be mandatory and those who refuse treatment will
cause themselves to be ineligible for welfare,'' Baird told the
legislature.

''It's time for the welfare system in Ontario to help people whose
addiction to alcohol or drugs is a barrier to them getting a job.''

Baird said the government consulted more than 600 individuals and
groups as it devised its plan to ''move people from drug dependency
to self-sufficiency.

''The government wants to help people on welfare get ready to work.
We want to break down the barriers to employment so people can answer
the call of a prospective employer,'' he said in a prepared statement.

The government's plan also includes mandatory literacy testing for
those who receive welfare, a doubling of the number of placements in
the work-for-welfare program and more training for welfare
caseworkers.

In identifying drug and alcohol addictions as obstacles requiring
unprecedented measures, the government resurrected criticism from
social activists who say the policies infringe on human rights and
unfairly target the poor.

Baird first proposed tying cheques to treatment last November, when
critics denounced it as a ploy to pare down the roughly 430,000 on
Ontario's welfare rolls.

On Thursday, those concerns emerged again.

''We don't think that it's appropriate for any group in Ontario to be
singled out for compulsory treatment on the basis of where they get
their income,'' said Chris Higgins, executive director of the Ontario
Federation of Community Mental Health and Addiction programs.

Mandatory treatment does not work as well as voluntary treatment and
wastes money, said Higgins. He suggests the government put the money
towards existing provincially funded addiction services, which need
as much as $25 million to deal with long waiting lists.

Higgins said most addicts use alcohol. Less than three per cent of
the population uses intravenous drugs.

Another unusual proposal was a provision requiring welfare recipients
who struggle with reading, writing and math to submit to mandatory
literacy tests.

''If a welfare recipient can't pass a basic language and math test,
they will be offered help. If they refuse help, they will have made
themselves ineligible for welfare in Ontario,'' said Baird.

The legality of the drug testing proposal has already been questioned
by Ontario's Human Rights' Commissioner Keith Norton.

In a confidential letter to the government two years ago, Norton
warned that drug users cannot be denied welfare benefits because
addiction problems are considered a handicap under the province's
Human Rights Code.

And last July, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that ''substance
abusers are handicapped and entitled to the protection of the (Human
Rights) Code.''

The province has said several American jurisdictions, including
Oregon, Maryland, Nevada and North Carolina have already integrated
substance abuse treatment into their welfare systems.