Good evening, Mr. Chair and honourable members.
On May 8 of this year, the TTC took the bold step of initiating random alcohol and drug tests for all safety sensitive positions, designated management positions, and executive positions. As a result, as Megan has alluded to, some 21 union members were found to have positive test results or refusals, people who would otherwise be out driving buses, subways, streetcars, in the busy streets of Toronto. Those people were undetected, unverified, unknown. What you don't know, you don't know. Random is the right way to deal with safety sensitive positions, particularly in the public transportation industry.
What TTC did was because it was the right thing to do, but I submit that it was the wrong way to do it. We have been involved in litigation for some six years with no end in sight. We're not through an arbitration process that began in 2011 and will be ongoing with, no doubt, judicial review, appeal to the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court of Canada. Maybe 10 years from now we'll get some decision. The problem with that is it's not at all proactive.
In every other western civilization, what it has taken is a horrific tragedy. In England, in London, there was a horrible subway crash that killed five people and injured 540 people as a result of someone being highly impaired by marijuana usage. Shortly following that, the government introduced legislative controls for random testing. Likewise in New York, a horrific accident. Likewise in Australia and in New Zealand. All these western democracies were reacting to situations that cried out for finally implementing random testing.
We're looking to leadership from the federal government to take the step, to set the bars, to set the requirements, to create consistency across the industry for all safety sensitive positions. Otherwise it will be a hodgepodge of different tests, different criteria, different arbitrators, different judges, all at different times coming to different conclusions at absolutely enormous expense to all of these companies, whether they're public sector or private sector. Inevitably, if it goes that way many families, many individuals, will suffer tragic consequences.
Thank you.