WARNING: HUGE RANT AHEAD!
Fuck off.
A shortage of Canadian-born exotic dancers? Huh? Has the Honorable Judy Sgro (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) lost her mind? Or has the untraceable, mysterious and unaccounted for "Adult Entertainment Association", (a group of strip club owners), greased this Ministry's palm(s) so well, that over the years they have actually assisted in the pimping of foreign women in our Canadian strip clubs and at the hands of those who wish to exploit the desperate state of the women in countries such as: Romania, Thailand, Philipines, Russia, etc...looking to come to Canada for a better life.
Sgro's riding is York West in Toronto. I know that area. It boasts a few strip clubs as well. The thing is, this "stripper work visa program" has been in place far longer than Sgro has been Immigration Minister. She is evidently the fall-guy for this indiscrepancy in immigration policy, that the opposition is gunning for vehemently, with our current minority government. Most likely, from my years of experience in the exotic entertainment industry, this policy was first instated by the opposition to begin with!
I am just enraged that a few individuals from an elusive association, that only consists of the interests of bar owners and not the workers/dancers in the adult entertainment industry, has been given so much clout as to sway the Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, to say "...there are not enough Canadian women who want to be exotic dancers to meet the demand.", in order to endorse this "specail work visa" and further the interests of these tyrants. The HRSD's statement is absolutely bogus.
The real reason these bar owners want foreign women is in this article here.
From the article:
Contrary to Immigration Department claims, there is no shortage of native-borne exotic dancers in Canada, says a University of Toronto law professor who has studied the strip club business.
Audrey Macklin says the real reason strip clubs want foreign dancers is that they are desperate and will do things Canadian women consider too unsafe or demeaning.
I have nothing against these women coming to Canada and getting a chance at a better life for themselves. My issue is with these mysterious strip club owners who always seem to remain nameless, who a)have become very wealthy on the backs of these foreign women, b)put the Canadian women strippers jobs in jeopardy and c) have degraded the industry by introducing these disadvantaged women into the business and then filling their collective heads full of unsavoury ideas and forcing the Canadian exotic dancers to change their own standards and broaden their services just in order to compete with these sometimes, very desperate women, from very desperate circumstances.
How can I compete with that as a dancer? And why is this industry being dictated to by the club owners, anyway? Why aren't the workers/dancers in this industry setting their own standards, instead of their fate being manipulated by self-serving club owners? Because exotic dancers are not unionized and thus, have no spokesperson or "special interest group" willing to lobby for them.
I have seen the exploitation of these foreign women with my very own eyes and consequently, canadian women also. These women are partially, or even completely controlled by those they work for. Under the guise of "assisting" foreign dancers, agents and club owners keep these women secluded and uninformed as to the standards and protocol of the exotic entertainment industry in Canada,(not that there is any official standards, ATM) and their rights in general while in Canada. In some cases, these women will have their passports taken from them, their profits from table dancing pilfered, and quite often forced to prostitute themselves. I have seen the evidence of it myself. I had to keep reading the little memo pasted on a changeroom wall in a strip club I was working at, over and over. I just couldn't believe what I was reading. When I said something about it to the club owners, I was basically told to keep my mouth shut, fired without my pay and replaced with a dancer from Thailand. I was the last Canadian-born dancer in that club.
Livid. I am absolutely livid. I knew it all along. |
S