ARE BETTER RULES NEEDED ON WORKPLACE IMPAIRMENT?

Better safe than sorry.

That’s the approach some employers took after recreational cannabis use became legal in Canada.

Most safety-sensitive workplaces—read police officers, pilots and construction workers— have banned employees from using cannabis recreationally for t least 28 days before their shift.

“Given the nature of our work and our obligation to serve the public in critical circumstances, we believe adopting anything less than this approach would have been too great a risk,” Const. John Macleod said of Halifax Regional Police’s cannabis policy.

Rick Dunlop, a labour and employment lawyer at Stewart Mckelvey, said employers have always had the right to prohibit off-duty conduct if it will affect the workplace.

“I recognize that employee rights advocates are concerned about an employer infringing upon an employee’s private lives,” Dunlop said.

Still, “employers have a legitimate concern and right to take steps to ensure that employees’ off-duty consumption do not put the employee’s safety or the safety of their fellow employees in jeopardy,” he said.

A precise timeline of residual impairment has yet to be established, leaving employers to err on the side of caution, Dunlop said.

Seventy-six per cent of employers across Canada adjusted their alcohol and drug policy after legalization, a recent Conference Board of Canada survey found.

Workplace safety was the top reason for adjusting drug policies, followed by impairment or intoxication at work, employee mental health, increase in workplace accidents or injuries and increase use of cannabis, the study reads.

“Understandably, organizations with a high proportion of safety-sensitive positions were far more likely to indicate that they were extremely concerned about the impacts on workplace safety than those with few safety-sensitive positions.”

A spokeswoman for the Nova Scotia Labour Department said it is unable to track cannabis-related incidents in the workplace.

“Anecdotally, it is our impression that we have received less than 10 cannabis related complaints since cannabis was legalized, which is comparable to the number of cannabis related complaints received before cannabis legalization,” the spokeswoman said.

Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador labour departments said there have been no cannabis-related incidents reported since legalization.