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“We’re all adults here,” said Hopkins, who served as non-voting Redblacks representative for the CFLPA annual meeting in Las Vegas earlier this month. “If you do something wrong, obviously you need to be punished for it, so I think it’s going to stop a lot of guys, especially the younger guys coming in, who want to do those things.

“That was a change as well for the (CFL) rookies. If they get caught when they’re tested, they have to miss out a whole year of playing. I just think that’s the right thing to do. We have to hold each other accountable to keep the game fair.”

Brian Ramsay, a recently retired offensive lineman who has been hired as the CFLPA’s first executive director, said discussions about the policy on performance-enhancing drugs had been ongoing since the CFL cut ties with CCES last year.

“It has taken a while,” Ramsay said Monday in a telephone interview. “With anything like this, there are different links to it and it’s not something that happens overnight.

“The policy itself is something that helps everyone in the league.”

The 40-year-old Burris, now the CFL’s oldest player following the off-season retirement of kicker Paul McCallum, described the agreement as Step 1 in addressing PEDs.

The CFL’s most outstanding player in 2015, Burris said, “I love the fact that, after a guy does make a mistake, his name will be out there. In the past it was pretty much a slap on the hand, and that wasn’t enough.

“We always knew that there were probably guys out there that were (taking PEDs) and you saw guys go from being little guys to suddenly they’re animals out there the next day. But, for a first step, it’s a good start because at least it builds some credibility for the league and for the guys who are on the field, and it showed at least we’re abiding by the rules and being professional.”

Meanwhile, the CFL announced Monday that post-season audits had determined that all nine clubs, including the Redblacks, stayed below the 2015 salary cap of $5.05 million. The cap will increase to $5.1 million this season.

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