MUCH INDUSTRY ATTENTION ON PRE-HIRING DRUG-TEST CASE

EDMONTON -- More industry heavyweights will be heard in the challenge
of a court ruling on pre-employment drug testing involving Alberta's
human rights commission and a large U.S.-based construction firm.

An Alberta justice ruled last June that Kellogg Brown & Root Company
(KBR) discriminated against a man when it fired him from an oilsands
project near Fort McMurray after his drug test was positive for marijuana.

KBR's appeal of that ruling is to be heard on Oct.
11.

The Alberta Court of Appeal has now granted intervener status in the
case to Syncrude Canada Ltd., the Mining Association of British
Columbia and the Coal Association of Canada.

Michael McPhie, president of the mining association, said
pre-employment drug and alcohol testing helps make dangerous work
sites safer and is a policy used by many of the group's 60 member companies.

The Alberta case could have national repercussions if it stands, he
said.

"This isn't a question of human rights. This is a question of
companies being responsible to both the worker who is being tested as
well his colleagues," McPhie said from Vancouver.

"We cannot in good conscience allow people that may be under the
influence of some type of substance to engage in activities that could
have very lethal consequences."

McPhie believes the challenge could go all the way to the Supreme
Court of Canada.

The human rights commission is to speak in defence of the ruling at
the appeal in Calgary, said Audrey Dean, senior commission counsel.

"The commission will ask the court to consider the fact that
pre-employment testing does not show future impairment," Dean said.