User:Geo Swan/Romanian dancers in Canada

__NOINDEX__ From 1999 to 2005 more than one thousand Romanian dancers in Canada worked under a Canadian Government program that allowed skilled workers to come to Canada to fill jobs for which there were not enough skilled Canadian citizens. These Romanian women were employed as exotic dancers. Some women from other nations came to Canada under this program, but the overwhelming majority of them were Romanians. In 2003 601 dancers received visas under the program -- 582 of them from Romania.

The program came to be highly criticized, with critics portraying it as exploiting women, who worked under unsafe conditions, and were exposed to undocumented sexual exploitation.

The original program was officially halted in late 2004. But Romanians working as dancers continued to be the focus of controvery. In April 2008 then Minister of Immigration Diane Finley reported receiving multiple death threats in response to her plans introduce new legislation to permanently end giving visas to exotic dancers.