A safety-sensitive Saskatchewan employer was justified in delaying a worker’s return to work following a reinstatement arbitration decision until it had satisfactory medical information about the worker’s impairment risk from medical marijuana, an arbitrator has ruled.
“If [an employer is] not satisfied that the medical information is good enough to reasonably understand if there’s a duty to accommodate or safety risks, then it should wait until it’s satisfied,” says Kit McGuinness, a labour and employment lawyer at McKercher LLP in Saskatoon.
“Especially in safety-sensitive positions, because drug and alcohol policies are more justifiable and more strictly applied – you have to be really careful or people can get hurt.”
