A "more liberal nation" like Canada?
Stripper shortage eyed in Canada
Government stops foreign recruitments
Doug Struck - Washington Post
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Toronto --- Coiled around a brass pole on a barroom stage, clad only in towering stiletto heels, a 31-year-old Romanian woman named Veronica is helping to fill what has suddenly become Canada's most talked-about shortage: a scarcity of strippers.
A government program to import hundreds of exotic dancers, which was already controversial, took center stage recently when Canada's immigration minister, Judy Sgro, was found to have given preferential visa treatment to a nude dancer who did volunteer work in her re-election campaign for Parliament.
Critics say the program turns Canada into a pimp, while local employers assert it serves a legitimate business, and dancers from struggling countries say it's a way to better their lives.
''This has been a great job,'' said Veronica, a native of Brasov, who declined to identify herself further. ''This has given me a better opportunity for life. I could never go to school and work in Romania.''
A needed specialty
Nude dancers come here under one of several programs aimed at recruiting foreign workers with specialties sorely needed in Canada.
Last year, the country imported more than 19,000 construction workers, almost 5,000 nannies and 1,560 university professors.
In addition, 661 work permits were issued or renewed for foreign exotic dancers.
Immigration agents selected the dancers from portfolios that showed past work experience, a legitimate job offer and usually a publicity photo.
A large majority have come from Romania, partly because a study showed that many female Romanian immigrants were well-educated and demanded few public services.
Many of the immigrants come to clubs in Toronto, where they strip on stage and perform private dances at customers' tables or in ''VIP rooms'' for extra tips.
Critics say the women are exploited and pressured to perform sexual services. The club owners deny it.
''No sex goes on here,'' said Michael, manager of the glitzy club where Veronica dances, speaking on the condition that his surname and the club's name not be used.
''We are a legitimate business. We pay lots of taxes," he said. "We employ people who buy homes and cars and pay taxes. We are just offering fantasy, just like lots of other entertainment businesses. Just like the Dallas Cowgirls,'' referring to the cheerleaders for the Dallas Cowboys football team.
Prostitution is not illegal in most of Canada, but soliciting for prostitution is, and sexual acts at a club could bring legal charges of running a ''bawdyhouse.''
The uproar over the importing of strippers has intensified in the past several weeks, with newspapers chiding the government for involvement in an unseemly business and Sgro and others like her fighting to keep their jobs.
Last week, the government announced it would end the program, though exotic dancers can still obtain visas by applying individually for jobs if their employers prove they cannot find Canadians to fill the positions.
'It's called pimping'
Jack Layton, a member of Parliament and head of the opposition New Democratic Party, said government involvement should be ended.
''When you get money for helping to get young women to be available for the sexual desires of Canadian men, it's called pimping,'' he said.
Richard Kurland, a Vancouver immigration lawyer, said that ending the program would only force the trade to go underground.
He started studying the program a decade ago, seeking to close it down, but later concluded that the legal process, which included official inspections of clubs, protected women from gang-controlled sex traffickers.
In fact, the government steered the recruiting of exotic dancers to Romania after studying female immigrants from that region.
The study showed the women often spoke English or French, drew little medical care and became good Canadian citizens if they stayed in the country, Kurland said.
Eighty-three percent of the exotic dancers given work permits in 2003 came from Romania. |
