Pubdate: Thu, 16 Nov 2000 Source: Toronto Star (CN ON) Copyright: 2000 The Toronto Star Contact: One Yonge St., Toronto ON, M5E 1E6 Fax: (416) 869-4322 Website: http://www.thestar.com/ Forum: http://www.thestar.com/editorial/disc_board/ Page: A18 Author: Alan Barnes, Staff Reporter DRUG TESTING PLAN UNDER FIRE Welfare recipients will turn to streets critics charge Critics are giving the needle to the Ontario government for its plan to compel those on welfare to undergo drug testing or lose their benefits. "It's an outrage and a victimization of peoples' rights," said Brian O'Keefe, secretary-treasurer of CUPE Ontario, which represents municipal workers who deal with social assistance recipients. "It's an atrocious plan," said Ernie Lightman, an economist and professor of social work at the University of Toronto. "It is mean and punitive." Anyone who tests positive for illegal drugs and refuses treatment will be ineligible for social assistance, the government announced Tuesday. I'm quite repulsed by it," said street nurse Cathy Crowe. "It's going to increase homelessness. You can't force treatment" on people. "The government should be testing water, not urine." Social Services Minister John Baird said Tuesday that he didn't know how many welfare recipients have a drug problem, but that only 200 people are in a provincial support program because of an addiction. Yesterday, he defended the plan in the Legislature. "Some would say we should simply do nothing, that we should sit back year after year and watch people use their welfare cheque to feed their drug habit instead of feeding their children." He said the government was tremendously concerned about the plight of those "in our community who are down on their luck, out of work and who, in a state of desperation and despair have turned to illegal drugs." He said it would be easy to sit back and do nothing. (But) I don't know what I would say to the caseworker who told me that she has seen one of the people she serves month after month, year after year, come into her office with track marks up and down her arm, and she is powerless to intervene and to force some help and support." 'Harris is asking us to do his dirty work,' union says Baird said he spoke this week to Ontario Human Rights Commissioner Keith Norton, who is concerned that the plan violates civil liberties. "We are . . . willing and eager to get his advice and the advice of his staff," Baird said. But Lightman said all the plan will do is drive "some very vulnerable independent people off welfare, and that is the only agenda this government has with respect to the welfare case load." Baird said the government is far from the finish of its welfare reforms even though the case load across the province is down by 50 per cent. Lightman said the government doesn't care what has happened to those who have dropped off the welfare rolls but we know "impressionistically where they have gone," he said. The use of food banks "is at record highs, there are more people living on the streets, women have gone back to abusive relationships and children go into the care of Children's Aid," Lightman said. If the government wanted to help people with addictions, they wouldn't have cut funds to treatment programs around the province, he said. Union official O'Keefe said, "(Premier Mike) Harris is asking us to do his dirty work." - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart