CORRALLING BIG BROTHER

Workplace drug and alcohol testing is an invasion of privacy and an abuse
of human dignity. That's why the Canadian Human Rights Commission's ruling
that federally regulated companies and public services must not conduct
random tests is eminently sensible and just.

The ruling draws a line in the sand against Big Brother-style intrusion
into our lives.

Employees need not fear coming to work one day, being handed a little jar
by the boss and subjected to the humiliation of a urine test for drugs.

The ruling also wisely forbids drug and alcohol testing as a pre-screening
tool for job applicants. In jobs that do not affect public safety, there
must be an element of tacit trust between employer and employee that the
latter will not come to work impaired.

Wisely, the commission did not rule out the tests across the board. Despite
their unreliability -- they often reveal traces of drugs in an individual's
system weeks after use -- they are a valuable tool for use among employees
whose jobs directly impact public safety. The list includes pilots, transit
drivers and those on whom the well-being of others depends.

But that's where it should stop. Our judicial system assumes innocence
until guilt is proven. So it should be in the workplace. Morale and
productivity can't help but be negatively affected by an atmosphere of
suspicion in which an employee's personal dignity is compromised by being
routinely treated as though he or she is guilty of substance abuse.

Certainly, cases of alcoholism and drug abuse that affect job performance
are unacceptable. But when they inevitably manifest themselves in overt
ways, employers have the right to take appropriate action. Using the tacit
assumption of guilt as justification for such a needless invasion of
privacy would bring a Stalinesque cloud over workplaces that followed such
practices.

Instead, this ruling lets a ray of light shine through.