Toronto, July 13, 2026 – The Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 113 has won a historic and decisive victory for workers’ rights to privacy, security of the person, and for facts over junk science. In a wide ranging and decisive win, a labour arbitrator ruled today that the Toronto Transit Commission’s random drug testing policies were unreasonable and contrary to section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Arbitrator Laura Trachuk found that there was no justification sufficient to impose random drug and alcohol testing on TTC employees, that there was no scientific evidence that random testing is effective in enhancing safety, and no evidence that the TTC’s testing levels reliably identified persons who were under the influence at of cannabis at work.
Arbitrator Trachuk found that an oral fluid test for THC is “not fit for the purpose for which it is being used by the TTC”.
Commenting on the decision, Marvin Alfred, President of Local 113 said the following:
“Literally thousands of workers have been forced to undergo these unreasonable tests which were never fit for purpose. Hundreds of workers have lost their employment because they were forced to take tests that were inaccurate and unreliable. This policy has been a tragedy for the workers and their families who have been devastated because of the misguided and inappropriate use of tests.”
Local 113 challenged the junk science. For far too long the bogus theories behind random testing went unchallenged.
The TTC has invested literally millions of tax-payer dollars in a program that was unreasonable, a breach of workers’, rights and did not work. Mr. Alfred said:
“Apart from the loss of privacy and the lives ruined by this misguided program, the public has suffered. Public dollars that could have been used for real and effective safety initiatives were instead wasted.”
The arbitrator’s decision is some 350 pages long and is a careful and devastating analysis of random drug testing and the tests used by the TTC.
Arbitrator Trachuk ordered reinstatement and other remedies for each of eight workers whose cases were used as “test cases” as well as an immediate end to random testing.
Mr. Alfred said that Local 113 is looking forward to doing everything necessary to see that all those who suffered because of the TTC’s unlawful actions are made right.