A haze of uncertainty has descended on many Canadian workplaces as the country prepares for the legalization of recreational cannabis on Wednesday.In an environment where an Ontario worker will be legally able to step out of the factory or office and spark up a joint on the sidewalk at lunch, many employers are scrambling to find and implement policies that can dissuade their workers from being high on the job.“My concern is that employees won’t have the education behind it and they’re going to think that, ‘Oh, it’s legal now and I can just go out and do it’,” says Mike Asselin, safety manager for Sudbury’s William Day Construction Ltd.“I think people are going to believe that … and employers are here getting information to try to control that,” says Asselin, who was attending a drugs and work conference in Milton this month.Asselin’s company, which employs several hundred workers, has a anti-drug policy — run by workplace testing and safety firm DriversCheck — that subjects workers to tests prior to hiring, after accidents or if there is reasonable suspicion that they are impaired on the job. But many firms that provide jobs in trucking, transit, aviation, rail, construction and other “safety sensitive” sectors are angling for something stronger still.“In Canada (unlike the U.S.) we really have no legislative or regulatory approach to this issue,” says Derrick Hynes, head of Federally Regulated Employers — Transportation and Communications (FETCO).“And we’ve consistently been arguing that we currently have a safety risk in Canada because there are no prescribed rules for managing impairment in the workplace,” says Hynes, whose group represents some of the largest transportation, oil and gas, forestry and rail groups in Canada.FETCO was a key member of a 2016 task force that was formed by Ottawa in anticipation of the new cannabis l ...
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