THE SIDELINES : Canada Drug Test Agency Sought

TORONTO —  Eighty-five days of testimony at a federal inquiry ended with harsh criticism for sports groups and a $2-million proposal to replace their drug-testing efforts with an independent agency.

Such an agency, Sport Canada’s Director General Abby Hoffman said, would conduct up to 3,000 random tests for performance-enhancing chemicals annually, more than seven times the number now conducted on Canadian athletes.

Hoffman suggested that it would go a long way toward preventing the kind of scandal that surrounded sprinter Ben Johnson when he failed a drug test at the Seoul Olympics a year ago.

Commissioner Charles Dubin questioned the wisdom of spending public money to create more bureaucracy instead of trying to improve the “most effective” way to monitor athletes: watching their daily development.