BC FERRIES CAN'T LOOK TO OTHERS TO BAIL IT OUT WHEN ITS WORKERS SMOKE DOPE

Ever since the Queen of the North ferry sank on March 22, 2006, BC
Ferries has been trumpeting the fact that it has a "zero-tolerance"
policy toward alcohol and drug use.

But as the report from the Transportation Safety Board released on
Wednesday confirms, the policy is evidently not worth the paper it's
written on.

The report stated that "there is strong evidence of regular use of
cannabis by crews on board the Queen of the North," and further, "the
investigation revealed that the Queen of the North crew members who
were regularly using cannabis showed insufficient awareness of its
impact on fitness for duty."

Now one has to wonder how this squares with a zero-tolerance policy.
Could it be that crew members were so surreptitious in their dope
smoking that their supervisors were unaware of the problem?

That would be hard to believe, given the odour produced by burning
marijuana. Indeed, the TSB report goes on to say that "there is some
evidence to suggest that not all senior crew members aboard the Queen
of the North consistently took sufficient action to ensure the
company's no-tolerance policy was strictly adhered to."

In other words, BC Ferries can institute all the policies it wants,
but if the company is unwilling to enforce them, they amount to
little more than public relations exercises. And the company's
response to the TSB report makes it clear that the inadequately
enforced drug policy is being used as a PR device, as the company
continues to deflect responsibility for the drug problem.

BC Ferries president David Hahn has said that the real problem is
that the policy doesn't go far enough, that it doesn't allow for
mandatory drug testing. Now he's calling on the TSB to recommend
testing and on the federal government to legislate it.

There are, however, significant problems with this suggestion.
Although workplace drug testing is common in the United States, the
situation in Canada remains ethically and legally unclear. Alberta
courts recently overruled one employer's pre-employment drug policy,
while the Ontario Superior Court of Justice upheld a similar policy
last year. Human rights legislation complicates the matter.

Further, opponents of drug testing note that a positive test doesn't
indicate an employee is impaired, but only shows that a drug has been
used some time in the past. Testing itself is open to abuse as it can
disclose a person's medical condition or a pregnancy.

Hahn's response to these concerns is that public safety should trump
human rights, which might be true if drug testing indicated
impairment -- but it doesn't.

The real problem with Hahn's statement, though, is that it serves to
avoid the finding that senior staff took insufficient steps to ensure
compliance with the drug policy. It's quite possible that there would
be no drug problem on the ferries if senior staff were vigilant about
doing their jobs.

Rather than calling on the TSB and the federal government to clean up
this problem, and rather than plunging BC Ferries into a legal and
ethical quagmire, Hahn ought first to do his job by ensuring that his
senior staff do theirs.