Let it never be said that Canadians aren’t open-minded sorts. Where else would you find the federal government providing incentives to import strippers into the country? Lord knows it’s a vital resource that there just isn’t enough of in The Great White North, eh? No wonder so many Americans want to move to Canada….
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 further identify herself. “This has given me a better opportunity for life. I could never go to school and work in Romania.”
Nude dancers come under one of several programs aimed at recruiting foreign workers with specialties sorely needed in Canada….
The uproar about 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.
Oh, wait…Americans are wanting to move north because Bush won the Presidential election…not because of easy access to strippers? Damn, just when I had begun to think that I had things figured out.
Of course, here in America, we’re a bit more subtle about who we give our tax breaks to. We hide ours in appropriations bills and dole them out to corporations and individuals who donate large sums of money to Republicans. Personally, I prefer the Canadian system. At least there’s no attempt to hide anything. Besides, what’s a poor Romanian girl to do?
