The leader of the TTC's largest union lashed out at the transit agency yesterday, calling allegations that a maintenance worker killed in a subway accident had used marijuana an "outrageous slander" and an attempt to shift blame for the accident.
A senior TTC official told The Globe and Mail on the condition of anonymity that an unreleased report on the April, 2007, fatal crash of a subway work car will reveal that the driver was high on marijuana - information that has added to calls for drug and alcohol testing after an unrelated incident this week in which a bus driver was charged with drunk driving.
The TTC has already pleaded guilty to Ministry of Labour charges in the subway accident case and has been hit with $250,000 in fines.
In a written statement yesterday, Bob Kinnear, president of Local 113 of the Amalgamated Transit Union, called the leak of the report's contents "shameful" and warned it would poison labour relations.
He said there was no evidence the dead worker, 38-year-old Tony Almeida, was responsible for the accident, since he was driving the work car - carrying equipment used to remove asbestos - at normal speed and had been given clearance to proceed.
Mr. Kinnear condemned the claim that Mr. Almeida was impaired at the time of the crash as "speculative," on the grounds that marijuana can be detected in the bloodstream even weeks after use.
"On behalf of Tony's widow and children, we condemn in the strongest possible terms the TTC's outrageous slander against a man who is not alive to defend himself," Mr. Kinnear said, going on to accuse the TTC of trying to "taint his name and burden his children with a public image of their father as someone who caused his own death through the use of marijuana."
globeandmail.com: TTC union calls marijuana report 'slander'
I thought Canada was beyond this type of tactic.
Have a good one!
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