We are now accepting speaker proposals for Under the Influence: Canada’s Workplace Impairment & Drug Testing Forum, a half-day virtual event presented across HR News Canada, HR Law Canada and Safety News Canada on Wednesday, Dec. 9, 2026.

We’re looking for speakers — employment and labour lawyers, OHS professionals and senior HR practitioners — to lead sessions for an audience of lawyers, HR professionals, safety managers and employers from across Canada. (A limited number of session slots are reserved for event sponsors; this call covers the keynote and remaining speaking opportunities.)

What makes a strong proposal

The best Under the Influence sessions are built the way our coverage is built: grounded in real rulings, real workplace incidents and real policy decisions, not theory. We’re especially interested in sessions on:

• When employers can — and can’t — test: reasonable cause, random testing in safety-sensitive roles, and pre-hire screening options that hold up legally
• Recognizing and responding to suspected impairment on the job, including what supervisors should and shouldn’t do
• Accommodation versus discipline after a positive test, and how to build a defensible decision-making process
• Recent arbitration and human rights rulings shaping drug and alcohol policy in Canada

Strong proposals in adjacent areas of workplace safety and employment law are welcome. What we’re not looking for: product pitches, generic “best practices” overviews, or anything a lawyer or safety professional in the audience could have written from memory.

The format

Under the Influence runs as a 4-hour virtual event. Individual sessions run approximately 35 minutes of presentation followed by live Q&A. Sessions are recorded and made available on demand. Solo presentations and two-person point-counterpoint formats are both welcome — panels are not.

How to submit

Fill out the form below.
Deadline: Sept. 30, 2026. Selected speakers will be notified in early October.