High at work: Liberals review rules
Companies are being told to set up their own cannabis use policies
OTTAWA — Federal officials have quietly probed possible new workplace rules for employees who show up to work high after cannabis is legalized next week, newly released documents show.
The documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the access-to-information law show Labour Minister Patty Hajdu was given options to deal with cannabis impairment in the workplace in early June as officials ironed out the details of any new policy.
Federal departments were wrestling at the time with their own response to workers who may smoke or vape pot, but were also quietly told Hajdu was considering changes to the Canada Labour Code — including whether and how to allow for mandatory drug testing for employees.
Officials said Wednesday that no new rules will be rolled out over the next week. Instead, companies are only being told to set up their own substance use policies that clearly lay out what is allowed and the consequences if
someone is impaired.
“Federally regulated employers do not tolerate impairment on the job — that does not change on October 17th,” Hajdu said in a statement.
She said her officials were going to work with employer and labour groups to better gauge the
effects of cannabis legalization on workplace health and safety.
There are currently no federal labour rules about drug and alcohol testing outside the military, and successive governments from the late 1980s have stayed away from the issue.
A federally struck committee
of companies and workers debated the idea for two years but ended up being split between labour groups who argued the current labour rules were enough in the absence of any credible data, and employer groups who believed that the status quo wasn’t an option.