"I think this whole thing has come up because some people are uptight and uneasy about nudity."
The uproar over the importing of strippers has intensified in the past several weeks, with newspapers chiding the government for being involved in an unseemly business, and Sgro and others like her fighting to keep their jobs. This past week, the government announced it would end the special 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.
An ad encourages calls to Sgro, who was found to have given preferential visa treatment to a dancer who did volunteer work for her campaign.
(Chris Wattie -- Reuters)
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Jack Layton, a member of Parliament and head of the opposition New Democratic Party, said government involvement should be ended altogether. "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.
Sgro said she did not like the program either, but that it filled a "labor market need" and that without it, "you'd have to wipe out the whole industry."
Maria Iadinardi, a spokeswoman for the Citizenship and Immigration department, said it granted the work permits because "exotic dancing is a legal occupation. The employers own legal businesses. But we are very vigilant to ensure they are bona fide dancers, to avoid trafficking of individuals for prostitution."
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.
Many eventually find legal ways to stay. Alina Balaican, 25, arrived two years ago from Romania and married a Canadian a year later. But when she ran into visa problems, she and her husband went to Sgro's office for help. They both wound up volunteering in her reelection campaign in June, after which Sgro signed papers giving Balaican temporary residency, effectively jumping a queue of 700,000 applicants. When the case was leaked to the news media, it brought howls of favoritism.
"Giving special favors because you do something for a politician is the hallmark of a banana republic," complained Diane Ablonczy, an opposition member of parliament.
The political frenzy grew when newspapers reported that Sgro's top aide, Ihor Wons, had prowled a Toronto strip club to discuss work permits for nude dancers with the owner. Sgro said the aide was just doing good constituent service. Kurland mocked that assertion: "A drunken chief of staff handing out immigration passes in a strip club is a problem."
Both support and opposition of the visa program have come from unexpected sources. Some women's groups, for instance, say the program's abolition would curtail the rights of immigrant women.
But Mary Taylor, a former exotic dancer in Toronto who now sells videos and books to teach stripping, said she favors stopping the program.
"It's not dancing," she sniffed. "I want to bring entertainment back, dancing back. Sitting on somebody's lap in a dark VIP room . . . is not dancing."
