ONTARIO TO REQUIRE WELFARE RECIPIENTS TO TAKE DRUG TEST

Policy Is Tories' Latest Attempt To Tighten Social Assistance Rolls

TORONTO - In what is being billed as a first in Canada, welfare recipients
will face mandatory drug tests and treatment under rules to be unveiled
today by the Ontario government.

The policy is designed to help certain recipients fight their addictions
and get back into the work force, the provincial government has said.

The rules were a key part of the Tory platform for last year's election and
will require treatment of welfare recipients who use drugs and random tests
to determine who has a problem.

"It's common sense -- you can't get off welfare and hold a job if you're
addicted to drugs," said the party's platform booklet, titled Blueprint.

Those who refuse to be tested or take treatment would be removed from the
social assistance rolls, according to the platform.

A government aide said the program is believed to be the first of its kind
in Canada.

Today's announcement is the latest attempt by Mike Harris, the Premier, and
his Ontario Tories to tighten up the welfare system. The provincial
government cut welfare cheques by 21.6% in 1995, cracked down on social
assistance fraud and required recipients, including young mothers, to work
or take training for their payments.

The Harris government has also toyed with a host of other controversial
programs that target social assistance recipients, imposing parenting
courses for expectant couples or deductions for fines that a welfare
recipient has not paid.

The programs have been widely criticized by poverty advocates as
discriminatory and a blow to the self-esteem of those in need. Some have
even deemed the plans "cruel and unusual" considering doctors who defraud
the Ontario Health Insurance Plan are not banned for life from receiving
OHIP fees.

Advocates for the poor yesterday called the new rules "poor bashing" and
said they will not produce concrete results. They also questioned whether
the initiative is legal in light of a court ruling last summer that banned
drug testing by employers.

The main barriers to people getting a job and leaving social assistance are
lack of child care, not having appropriate clothes or preparation for the
job market and insufficient education, said Andrea Calver of the Ontario
Coalition for Social Justice.

"Drug dependency would be dead last," said Ms. Calver.

"This is welfare bashing, this is poor bashing ... It will be a huge waste
of money."

Critics suggested the government offer voluntary treatment programs.

They also suggested the government may have trouble implementing the policy
following an Ontario Court of Appeal case last July that declared drug
testing by companies to be a violation of the province's human rights code.

The court said both alcohol and drug testing are discriminatory under the
code. A Breathalyzer is permissible for people in high-risk jobs such as
oil refinery workers, pilots and train engineers because it determines if
someone is impaired by alcohol at the moment the test is administered, the
judges said.

However, drug tests done on urine samples cannot be justified because they
simply identify drugs in the worker's system, whether or not there is still
enough to cause any impairment, said the court.