I just saw this arcticle on my local news website and I thought it was a nice "wtf" article, and with the discussion on immigration going on, I decided to translate it here.

End of the federal program.
The number of strippers immigrating to Canada is in strong decline

The number of foreign strippers immigrating to Canada to practice their profession had a strong decline since the Federal Government ended a program aiming to respond to a shortage workers.

CanWest claim to have obtained documents demonstrating that only ten temporary work permits were given to stripper by Immigration Canada in 2005, as opposed to 57 the year before.

The number of renewal has also droped drastically, going from 366 in 2004 to 60 last year.

Until recently the government hastened to give visas to stripers, Canadians being apparently unwilling to do this job. Most came from Eastern Europe, notably Romania.

The liberal government put an end to this program in 2004 due to harsh critics. Some claiming it contributed to exploitation and even traffic of women.

The case had strongly tarnished the image of the minister of Citizenship and Immigration of that time, Judy Sgro, who claimed the program was necessary for the protection of stip clubs of Canada. She had notably emmited a permit to a stripper that had participated to her campaign. Mrs. Sgro eventually had to quit her post.

Many requests are now refused because of doubt on the intentions of potential employers. The great decline of approved demands raise questions to the fate of women that had crossed the Atlantic to come work in Canada.

Police believe many of them were foced to prostitute themselves.

[ 05-26-2006, 07:57 AM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

My sister will be very happy to hear about this. :D

Tell your sister she's too late.

I think this is a good program. I entirely support it. The world needs more, not less, strippers, and with to complete sexual liberation of women, there's no reason not to have such liberation.

Cruise over to myspace.com and you'll quickly learn that about 80% of women appear to be strippers at heart, anyway. Exploitation of women? Try the reverse.

Surely handing out work permits would be more likely to ensure strippers aren't trafficked as they're then registered and have some sort of official documentation?

I also agree it's a great idea. My girlfriend is trying to find somewhere outside of london that teaches pole dancing, partly because she thinks a good poledancer looks sexy and partly because it's a good way to keep fit.

But can she find anywhere? No, because of course, it must be exploitative :rolleyes:

[ 06-07-2006, 01:14 PM: Message edited by: shamrock_uk ]