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rfmcdonaldFrom Jeff Gray's article in The Globe and Mail:
This report has gotten more than the usual attention because of a recent incident involving a drunk TTC bus driver, who was arrested by the police in response to passengers' complaints and whose "blood-alcohol level was found to be three times over the limit and a bottle of suspicious liquid was recovered from his bus."
A transit worker who died in a subway tunnel accident last year was high on marijuana when the work car he was driving crashed, according to a high-ranking Toronto Transit Commission source.
The information, contained in a report to be made public later this month, the source said, is expected to amplify calls for drug and alcohol testing that have surfaced after a TTC bus driver was charged with drunk driving this week.
The April, 2007, accident that killed Tony Almeida, a 38-year-old father of two, shook the transit agency and gave renewed impetus to a wide-ranging safety review.
That review had already put drug and alcohol testing on TTC management's agenda before this week's incident.
An improperly stowed piece of equipment on his work car caught the side of the tunnel wall and the vehicle derailed. The TTC later pleaded guilty to Ministry of Labour charges of failing to maintain a safe workplace and paid a $250,000 fine.
[. . .]
Bob Kinnear, leader of Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union that represents 9,000 TTC employees, said he could not comment on the report on Mr. Almeida's death without seeing the document. But he said he would fight any move to force his workers to submit to drug and alcohol testing.
"They're out to lunch," he said of TTC management, calling the idea an invasion of privacy and vowing to instruct all TTC workers to refuse to submit to any such tests.
Mr. Kinnear said TTC management told him two weeks ago in writing that this month they would be proposing drug and alcohol testing to the commission of city councillors that oversees the TTC.
Drug and alcohol testing for transit operators is mandated by law in the United States, but has been contentious when raised in Canada both for intercity bus drivers and in other industries.
"I'm telling you right now that it is not going to happen as far as I'm concerned," Mr. Kinnear said, arguing that testing would not stop such an incident from happening again.
This report has gotten more than the usual attention because of a recent incident involving a drunk TTC bus driver, who was arrested by the police in response to passengers' complaints and whose "blood-alcohol level was found to be three times over the limit and a bottle of suspicious liquid was recovered from his bus."
