LMT October 15th 2018

4 Last Mountain Times • Monday, October 15, 2018 • lmtimes.ca
EDITORIALS, LETTERS & OPINIONS
Is the Canadian Workplace ready?
New study highlights strong disconnect between
managers and employees on recreational
cannabis use and expectation in the workplace
Trans Mountain mired in hopeless
consultations and useless studies
The court decision against the pipeline veered away from
objective legal analysis into opinions designed to justify
preconceived biases
For the second time in two years, three judges
with the Federal Court of Appeal struck down a crucially
important oil export pipeline project that had
undergone years of regulatory review. The approval
of Northern Gateway by the former federal government
of Conservative Stephen Harper was struck
down in 2016. That was after Enbridge spent halfa-billion
dollars on a massive six-year review and
Indigenous consultation process. Now the Trans
Mountain expansion, approved after a billion dollar
expenditure by Kinder Morgan and since purchased
by the federal government, has met the same fate.
Last week, the Liberal federal government of
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced it would
not appeal that decision to the Supreme Court of
According to our new poll from
Ipsos, the changing legal status
of cannabis in Canada highlights
a disconnect between employers
and employees, especially as it
relates to when and how cannabis
can be consumed at work.
According to the survey, only
six per cent of employed Canadians
believe their organizations
will allow the use of cannabis
(marijuana) for recreational
purposes during work hours or
before coming into work. However,
10 per cent of managers are
much more likely to say it will be
allowed than employees without
managerial responsibilities. In
fact, nearly one in five managers
say they are at least somewhat
likely to consume cannabis for
recreational purposes before
going to work, and 14 per cent say
it’s at least somewhat likely they
will consume cannabis during
work hours – vastly outnumbering
non-managers, where only
seven per cent said they will likely
use cannabis before work, and
only four per cent say they will
use during work.
Changes in the workplace are
always difficult to navigate, but
it appears cannabis legalization
for recreational purposes adds
a particularly complex disconnect
between the expectations
and intentions of employers and
their employees. It’s particularly
interesting to see that employees
without managerial responsibilities
are more reserved in their
expectations of personal use
during working hours than their
managerial counterparts.
Another cause of the disconnect
between managers and employees
stems from their understanding
of formal policies and guidelines
surrounding the use of drugs and
alcohol in the workplace. While
75 per cent of managers say they
are aware of such policies in their
places of employment, only 64
per cent of non-managers say the
same – with a further 17 per cent
saying they do not believe their
workplace has specified policies
or guidelines to regulate drug
and alcohol usage. Furthermore,
while 36 per cent of managers
say that their organizations are
introducing or revising their
workplace policies and guidelines
because of the impending legalization
of recreational cannabis,
only 13 per cent of non-managers
say this is happening in their
workplace – with nearly half (49
per cent) saying they are unsure
if their policies and guidelines are
being updated or revised.
It’s clear, managers need to
have detailed, informed and
thorough conversations with
employees about what constitutes
acceptable behaviour in the workplace
when it comes to cannabis.
Having these conversations early
on will help to set clear expectations
on both sides and reduce
the chance for any negative impact
on workplace performance
and productivity.
Other findings of note from
the study include: 10 per cent of
respondents in Alberta, Saskatchewan
and Manitoba are the
most likely to believe they will be
allowed to use cannabis for recreational
purposes during work
hours or before coming into work,
and 12 per cent of Saskatchewan/
Manitoba respondents say they
are at least somewhat likely to
consume cannabis during work
hours.
These are some of the findings
of an Ipsos poll conducted
between September 17 and 21,
2018, on behalf of ADP. For this
survey, a sample of 1,000 working
Canadians (500 of whom are
managers, 500 of whom are not,
none of whom are self-employed)
aged 18+ was interviewed online
via the Ipsos I-Say panel and
non-panel sources.
- Hendrik Steenkamp, Director,
HR Advisory, ADP Canada.
Canada. It’s bad enough that a private company
can’t get a fully approved infrastructure project
done. But can you think of another country in the
world where three judges can overrule the ability
of a national government to exercise its constitutional
right to build its own project? And, in both
cases, those judges based their decision on dubious
conclusions that veer from objective legal analysis
into nuanced opinions seemingly designed to justify
their preconceived biases. At the heart of both decisions,
the panels concluded that the government’s
consultations with First Nations had been “inadequate.”
Here is a summary of the consultations that took
place prior to the approval of the Trans Mountain