MORTON AIMS AT POT RULING

Tory leadership hopeful Ted Morton is taking aim at a recent court
decision that found pre-employment drug testing to be a violation of
a worker's rights.

While in Fort McMurray yesterday, Morton called the ruling a judicial
mistake that needs to be corrected.

"It puts the rights of some guy to smoke pot above the safety of his
fellow workers," he told the Sun yesterday in a phone interview.
"It's preposterous."

In the decision first handed down May 11, Alberta Court of Queen's
Bench Justice Sheilah Martin overturned an earlier Alberta Human
Rights and Citizenship Commission ruling and essentially ruled that
casual pot smoking is a "disability" and firing someone who tested
positive for the active ingredient in marijuana in a pre-employment
urine test is discriminatory under Alberta's human rights laws.

Morton called that a bad, judge-made law.

"It is bad law because it creates new rules that cannot be found in
the Alberta Human Rights Code," he said. "Drug use, much less illegal
drug use, is not even listed as a 'disability' in the act. Nor was it
ever intended to be."

Justice Martin ruled that Kellogg Brown & Root - a Fort McMurray
company - discriminated against John Chiasson when it fired him from
his oilsands job after he tested positive for marijuana in a
pre-employment drug test.

Morton said that if he becomes premier, he would amend the act to
exclude the use of illegal drugs as a form of disability.

He said part of his leadership campaign is aimed at reducing
judge-made and bureaucrat-made law.

Suncor spokesman Brad Bellows said pre-employment drug testing is all
about putting safety above everything else.

"We think it's a suitable and reasonable measure to ensure a safe
workplace," Bellows told the Sun, adding Suncor employees cannot
start work until the test has been completed.

"If you look at the environment of an oilsands plant, it is essential
people are fit for duty."

Syncrude spokesman Alain Moore said one important component of the
company's world-class safety performance is its alcohol and drug policy.

"We have an alcohol and drug policy that we believe helps ensure the
safety and well-being of everyone on our site," he said, adding
they'll be paying attention to future legal proceedings.