The Toronto Transit Commission's nine-member board has voted to introduce random drug testing for a majority of its 10,000 employees.
The vote expands the TTC's existing Fitness For Duty policy, which triggers drug testing only after accidents, upon hiring or if a supervisor suspects intoxication.
Under the new staff-recommended program, most TTC employees – including all drivers, collectors as well as some managers and executives – would be subjected to saliva swabs and breathalyzers on a random basis.
TTC chair Karen Stintz also introduced a motion Wednesday to require testing of herself and other councillors sitting on the board.
The cash-strapped transit commission has yet to provide an exact cost for the program.
TTC staff first proposed the idea in 2008, citing evidence of 39 substance-abuse incidents at the agency over the previous 30 months.
Since then, the substance-abuse problem at the TTC "has not improved," according to TTC spokesman Brad Ross.
The board in 2008 rejected random testing, yielding to vociferous opposition from Amalgamated Transit Union head Bob Kinnear who threatened job action if the measure passed.
Mr. Kinnear returned to offer a more restrained criticism of the proposal at a TTC meeting on Wednesday. He said random drug testing created "a negative perception of our members" and failed to address the larger problem of sleep deprivation at the agency.
"We have employees working 12, 13, 14 hours a day," he said. "That is the biggest impairment we face."
Mr. Kinnear has advocated for less invasive tests, such as reaction-time tests and optical scanners.
Based on his deputation, the commission passed a motion from Councillor Maria Augimeri to look more closely at optical technology. Mr. Kinnear was not so successful in persuading the current slate of councillors to reject the proposal outright.
Several recent incidents have focused attention on substance abuse among TTC operators. In August, a Lawrence Avenue bus slammed into a flatbed truck, killing one woman. Police later charged the driver with criminal negligence causing death and marijuana possession. In 2010, one TTC driver lost her licence for three days after a roadside breath test, and another bus driver faced impaired driving charges after witnesses spotted erratic driving in the city's north end.
The staff report on testing included stats on the number of substance abuse problems at the agency in recent years, but commissioners voted to keep the information confidential. Vice-chair Peter Milczyn said that based on those stats he was convinced "the TTC does have a problem" with drug and alcohol abuse. "I'm also convinced we need this policy and we need it now," he said before the vote.
The new policy would reach right up to TTC chief GM Gary Webster and involve a combination of saliva swabs and breath tests rather than urine or blood tests, which can reveal long-term substance abuse and violate privacy laws.
The TTC would be the first transit agency in the country to impose mandatory drug testing on such a wide swath of its personnel. Currently, only transit agencies whose lines extend into the United States, such as Transit Windsor, carry out routine drug-testing on drivers. Federal law in the U.S. has mandated random testing for transit operators since 1995.
Former TTC vice-chairman Joe Mihevc has said he believes the new proposal constitutes a human rights violation and that the value of testing is dubious.
"The evidence is very unclear," he said. "What you want in a safe job environment is people to be able to come forth if they have addiction issues that they are struggling with, you want to empower supervisors so if someone looks like they are impaired that they are stopped."
Editor's note: A previous version of this story misquoted Amalgamated Transit Union head Bob Kinnear. This version has been corrected.