Under Bill C-45, tabled by Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Jason Kenney on June 17, a visa officer “shall refuse to authorize the foreign national to work in Canada if, in the officer’s opinion, public policy considerations that are specified in the instructions given by the Minister justify such a refusal”.
The instructions, according to the bill, “shall prescribe public policy considerations that aim to protect foreign nationals who are at risk of being subjected to humiliating or degrading treatment, including sexual exploitation”.
Kenney’s ministry issued a media release stating that the proposed amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act will “protect vulnerable foreign workers such as exotic dancers and live-in caregivers who could be victims of exploitation”.
However, Kurland said that bill is a “blank cheque to refuse people”.
“The path that I see is.…‘Let’s attack exotic dancers because we want to but we’re not allowed to,’ ” he said, adding that exotic dancing in strip clubs is a legal activity. “They can’t use the criminal law so they’re going to use the immigration law on a morality issue.”
Alice Wong, Conservative MP for Richmond and parliamentary secretary for multiculturalism, explained that the bill is intended more for exotic dancers, agricultural labourers, and those who may end up in “sweat shops” than it is for live-in caregivers.
According to Wong, one measure to evaluate the vulnerability of a person is insufficiency of funds. “If we allow them in, we are actually putting them in great risk,” Wong told the Straight.
Wong confirmed that the bill is driven by Conservatives’ aversion to foreign strippers in Canada. “That is one of the major concerns because, legally, according to admissible criteria, these workers can come in but experience has told us that once they come in, they will be exploited,” she said.
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Strip club owners already find it almost impossible to bring women to Canada. In a letter to Parliament’s citizenship and immigration committee in 2008, Tim Lambrinos, executive director of the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada, pointed out that from about 1,000 visas for strippers issued in an unspecified previous year, the government issued only 17 in 2007 and half of 2006 combined.
In a phone interview from Toronto, Lambrinos said that in 2008, only about 10 visas for foreign strippers were granted.
“I want to know the name of one Canadian employer, of an exotic club owner who has been charged or convicted of any crime of any form of exploitation against foreign women working as an exotic dancer in Canada in the last five years,” Lambrinos told the Straight. “There’s not one.
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