THE QUEEN OF THE NORTH

RCMP Refused To Test Crew For Drugs: Ferry Chief

BC Ferries Chief Describes How His Repeated Requests Were Rebuffed

VICTORIA -- David Hahn, president of BC Ferries, repeatedly asked to
have the bridge crew of the Queen of the North tested for drugs and
alcohol in the hours after the ship crashed and sank, but RCMP
investigators refused.

That revelation follows last week's findings that some members of the
crew regularly consumed marijuana both on and off the ship, and the
assertion that there was no evidence to show that any crew members on
the doomed ship were impaired.

The Queen of the North sank in the early hours of March 22, 2006,
after ramming into Gil Island at full speed. The ship had failed to
make a crucial course correction, and a series of investigations are
still under way into how that happened.

But Mr. Hahn said in an interview that he is still baffled that no
tests were done to rule out drugs or alcohol.

From the moment BC Ferries' lawyers touched down in Prince Rupert
four hours after the ship sank, Mr. Hahn was pressing to have the
crew tested for evidence of intoxication.

"That's when I started saying, talk to the RCMP, I want drug and
alcohol testing done on these people, if nothing else just to know
that there wasn't anything like that involved," Mr. Hahn recalled.

When Mr. Hahn, sitting at the company's operations centre in
Victoria, was told the RCMP were not prepared to seek testing, he
said he was in a state of disbelief.

"I said, 'Go back into the room and tell them this is what we want to
have done and that it's important to have it done.' It was again
rebuffed, they felt there wasn't any indication, based on their
interviews with the individuals, that there was any impairment."

Mr. Hahn kept his concerns to himself at the time: Publicly, the
ferry president said shortly after the crash that there was no
evidence that alcohol played a role.

The RCMP refused comment yesterday on the decision not to conduct
intoxication tests after the ferry disaster, which claimed two lives.
"The matter is still under investigation," said Constable Annie
Linteau, an RCMP spokesperson.

Last week, the Transportation Safety Board announced that it had
uncovered evidence of drug use aboard the ship. But the TSB stressed
that it was not linking the drug use to those in command on the night
of the crash.

"The TSB learned that several crew members of the Queen of the North
regularly smoked cannabis between shifts, both on board and off the
vessel. The board stressed that there is no evidence that the crew
members on the bridge at the time of the accident were impaired," an
Oct. 17 statement said.

John Cottreau, a spokesman for the TSB, said yesterday the statement
wasn't meant to clear the bridge crew, but to simply point out the
lack of hard facts.

"There is no evidence to suggest they were [impaired], but that's
because there is no evidence," he said yesterday. While it is in the
TSB's power to ask for such testing, it did not request tests in this
case and he could not say why. "It just wasn't done," he said.

The TSB was set to release its final report on the sinking this fall,
but new evidence - crew testimony suggesting no officer was on the
bridge at the time of the crash - has sent investigators back to
conduct more interviews. That second set of questioning led to the
board's concerns about drug use.

The issue of testing for drugs and alcohol seemed obvious, Mr. Hahn
said, particularly given the evidence that the captain of the Exxon
Valdez was intoxicated while operating the oil tanker that crashed
into an Alaskan reef in March, 1989.

Mr. Hahn wants the federal government to allow mandatory and random
drug and alcohol tests of crew in safety-sensitive roles.

"There are times when public safety flat out trumps human rights," he
said. "I want to feel good when my kids go on the ferries. I don't
want to worry about them."

Jackie Miller, president of the union representing the ship's crew,
declined comment yesterday, saying she will make a statement when the
RCMP and TSB investigations are complete.