Pubdate: Fri, 24 Nov 2000 Source: St. Catherines Standard (CN ON) Address: 17 Queen St., St. Catharines, Ont. L2R 5G5 Website: http://www.scstandard.com/ Contact: Brigitte Bonner LET'S DRUG-TEST EVERYONE, TORY BIGWIGS INCLUDED I am writing in regards to the Harris government's new policy of testing welfare recipients for drug use. These welfare recipients are obviously no use to society, as they don't contribute to our economy and in fact cost us money. Why should we continue paying them if they are going to take drugs? The only thing they may be doing is trying to take care of the 225,000 children who are also on welfare. But oh well. Children are totally useless to business, I mean society, because they are not able to work yet. (Perhaps this could be changed, after all, Third-World countries have child labour, why not Ontario?) What I don't understand is the actual financial advantage of spending all this money testing welfare bums. The Harris government has done an excellent job of reducing their cheques and cutting them off. They even eliminated the $32 monthly subsidy for single moms -- how efficient! How much money would we really save if we cut more off? If Harris is really interested in saving the taxpayers' money, he should expand this program to other people. Stay-at-home moms would be my next choice. How dare these women think their jobs should stay secure for them just so they can stay home with a kid for a year? They are probably using this as an excuse for drinking beer and shooting up. Think of the money that business could save if we could cut the moms off. Teachers should be next. They don't deserve any rights. They get the summer off. And how about the students? We could kick them out of school if they tested positive. Think of the millions we could save on education! Senior citizens should definitely be tested. They are costing society millions and we know they are heavy drug users because we are paying for their prescriptions! Cutting them off would save the health budget from bankruptcy, not to mention the money we would save on pension cheques. But why limit this testing to these unimportant and insignificant members of society? As a gesture of good will and to show the public that we can really trust the PC party, perhaps Harris and his colleagues would be willing to voluntarily take drug tests themselves. After all, such highly paid and important members of our society would never do drugs, would they? I suggest Mike, Chris Stockwell, Chris Hodgson and the nature-loving Tim Hudak be the first to submit to these tests. What do you say guys? Show everyone how truly honourable you all are. Brigitte Bonner, Ridgeway - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck