Observations on fast-tracked visas

David Blunkett is not the only politician in trouble over fast-tracked entry visas. Indeed, his problems over the Filipina nanny of his lover Kimberly Quinn look bland against the scandal that has engulfed Canada's immigration minister, Judy Sgro.

Canada's immigration system is liberal in the sense that it welcomes more than 200,000 migrants a year, but it is also functional because it favours, through a points system, people with skills that are in short supply. So computer programmers, engineers and bilingual pastry chefs, for example, get in quickly. What has caused the scandal is that work permits have also been issued - through the immigration ministry's "exotic dancers programme" - to hundreds of Romanian strippers. The government is accused of pimping.

Why Romania? Club operators say the women speak English, have a high level of education and are anxious to leave a country where average annual incomes are about £800. Though government officials say many of the dancers eventually return to Romania, 552 of the 661 who got visas in 2003 abandoned their homeland.

Other nationalities are apparently over-looked. The human resources minister, Joe Volpe, whose department decides which skills Canada needs, agrees that these non-Romanian strippers are being unfairly excluded. Others argue that there is no shortage of willing and able Canadian strippers - it's just that foreigners will go further, sometimes beyond what the law permits. It was in Toronto, after all, that intimate lap dancing, as opposed to mere striptease, originated.

Allegations of ministerial sleaze are flying. One Romanian dancer is said to have worked as a volunteer on Sgro's campaign team in Canada's federal election earlier this year. She later received the minister's assistance on a residence permit renewal application. And, showing that sharpish fundraising tactics are not restricted to new Labour, the Canadian Liberals' campaign war chest is alleged to have received more than C$5,500 (£2,500) from a club owner. What's more, Sgro's one-time chief of staff met the donor to discuss failed permit applications for 18 dancers from the Dominican Republic.

The Conservative Party and the left-of-centre New Democratic Party, noted for their commitments to family values and radical feminism, respectively, have united in calling for Sgro's head. The embattled minister defiantly replies that the exotic dancing industry "has a need, and we have an obligation to fulfil that need whether I like it or not". The government is nevertheless reining in the programme. Strippers will no longer get fast-track entry. Instead, club operators will have to apply for permits on a case-by-case basis.

But that, some lawyers say, could open the government to a class-action lawsuit for arbitrarily interfering with the flow of international labour. And Tim Lambrinos, executive director of the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada, insists that visas for dancers are no different from visas for fruit pickers and nannies. "The political outrage focusing on the exotic-dancer programme," says Lambrinos, "is further proof that society is still prejudiced against strippers."

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