MANITOBA SCHOOL EMBARKING ON TESTING FOR DRUGS

WINNIPEG -- A rural Manitoba high school is gearing up to be the first in
Canada to test its athletes randomly for narcotics and alcohol use,
inviting a battle between privacy watchdogs and parents who want more done
to discourage drug use among adolescents.

Parents and board members with southern Manitoba's Garden Valley School
Division have taken a page from U.S. high schools, which won a Supreme
Court battle in June over the right to test school athletes for drug use by
arguing that deterrence justifies such testing.

Garden Valley's draft policy, which officials had hoped to implement by
Christmas, would require students participating in extracurricular sports
at Garden Valley Collegiate, the division's only high school, be tested for
narcotic drug and possibly alcohol use.

Students who test positive face a six-week suspension from their sport, and
must attend drug counselling.

A second positive test could result in a one-year suspension from the sport.

News that the school division intended to adopt the controversial policy
has resulted in a warning salvo from Manitoba's privacy commissioner and
ombudsman, Barry Tuckett, who believes it may infringe on two pieces of
provincial legislation aimed at protecting the privacy of citizens' health
information.

"We haven't decided whether to audit, monitor or investigate it, but I
think we can say that we will definitely be reviewing this activity in some
form," he said yesterday. "How far are you going to go? Maybe we should put
monitors on our kids and cameras on their foreheads."

Karl Redekop, principal of the 940-student high school in the farming town
of Winkler, said yesterday that his school executive and its parent
advisory council, which fully endorsed the draft policy, had a sense their
proposal was groundbreaking but they didn't anticipate all the attention.

"We're little bit overwhelmed at the reaction," he said yesterday, between
fielding media calls.

"To be candid, most of the feedback I'm getting is quite positive. Yes,
there are people who have questions. But one of the questions is whether we
should be doing it with the entire student body."

A team of lawyers is combing over the draft policy to make sure it respects
student privacy and passes muster with provincial legislation.

Then, Mr. Redekop says, Garden Valley Collegiate will make a copy of the
draft policy available to students and parents.

Gary Gilmour is a Winkler lawyer and the father to a 14-year-old and
17-year-old who attend Garden Valley Collegiate and are active in sports.

As a volunteer badminton coach at the high school, Mr. Gilmour said he
often worries about how to handle potential drug use among athletes while
on trips to compete with other schools.

He thinks the policy might make it easier for high-school coaches, many of
them volunteers.

"I think the privacy issues are relevant but they may have to give ground
to other factors," he said.

Garden Valley Collegiate student council president Bonnie Dowling, 17, said
yesterday that the draft policy has set the hallways abuzz.

"Everybody is talking about it," she said.

"The athletes feel they are being picked on. But the people that seem the
most worried about it are the ones that should be worried. . . . I hope the
administration sticks to its guns."