Doing the stripping that Canadians aren't doing...??
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Exotic dancers protest immigration crackdown

Chris Wattie
CanWest News Service
Wednesday, August 15, 2007

TORONTO - She would only identify herself as Nadia as she tottered up to the microphone in glittery high heels, brushing a strand of her pink-dyed hair out of her face before reading her statement from a sheet of well-creased notepaper.

She has worked in Toronto strip clubs for several years after coming to Canada from the Czech Republic and on Wednesday she insisted angrily that it is honest work.

"It was always my choice to be here," Nadia said in a faint East European accent. "Nobody made me stay.

"My work as an exotic dancer is not humiliating or degrading to me."

Nadia was one of dozens of dancers who crowded into a public meeting at Toronto's City Hall Wednesday night to protest a new federal bill that they say would make it all but impossible for foreign women to come to Canada to work in strip clubs.

"I am a proud Hungarian but I'm working in Canada and I love this country," said Margaret, who has danced in Toronto strip bars for seven years.

"All I really want is the chance to make myself a better life . . . this new law is unfair."

More than 75 people turned out for the meeting, one of a series organized by the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada to publicize the industry's opposition to Ottawa's Bill C-57.

Tim Lambrinos, the director of the adult entertainment association of Canada, said the 56 clubs his group represents are not in the business of exploiting, humiliating or degrading anyone.

The association is holding public meetings across Ontario this month to raise support for changes to a proposed law that would tighten restrictions on foreign women coming into Canada to work as exotic dancers.

Diane Finley, the citizenship and immigration minister, earlier this year tabled Bill C-57 in the House of Commons.

The proposed law would allow immigration officers to reject foreign workers deemed to be at risk of being sexually exploited, humiliated or degraded.

The minister said she designed the bill to "protect vulnerable foreign workers, ones that could easily be exposed to sexual exploitation, harassment and abuse."

But Lambrinos said the bill is clearly aimed at the strip clubs, which employ an estimated 700 foreign dancers across the country.

"Nobody in the industry condones degradation and abuse," he said, "and we're suggesting several ways of addressing (Ottawa's) concerns."

The recommendations include barring agents from applying for work permits on behalf of foreign dancers, a toll-free tip line for dancers to report abuse, allowing foreign dancers to be eligible for re-entry visas and allowing them to work only in accredited facilities.

The bill, to amend the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, passed second reading in Parliament in June and has been referred to the Commons Committee on Citizenship and Immigration.

© National Post

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