Responding to the public comments of the Minister, organizations such as the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada, Dancers’ Equal Rights Association, Stella, Exotic Dancers Association, and NakedTruth.ca have argued that Bill C-57 may harm the very people it is trying to help by driving foreign exotic dancers into underground establishments where they will be beyond the reach of those monitoring workplace health and safety standards or who are on the alert for other forms of exploitation (12) These organizations argue that to more effectively combat exploitation ...[+++] in strip clubs, the government should focus on ensuring health and safety standards in such establishments, investigate conditions in clubs that sponsor foreign exotic dancers, and carefully examine the reasons behind the apparent lack of Canadian women applying for such positions (13) They say that the government should target exploitation in strip clubs by improving workplace standards in those environments rather than targeting the women who apply for those jobs; the outcome of the government’s approach, they argue, will be to relegate Canadians to the jobs that it feels are too exploitative for foreign workers (14) This point was also made during second reading of the Bill in the House of Commons.

Responding to the public comments of the Minister, organizations such as the Canadian Council for Refugees, the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada, Dancers’ Equal Rights Association, Stella, Exotic Dancers Association, and NakedTruth.ca have argued that Bill C-17 may harm the very people it is trying to help by driving foreign exotic dancers into underground establishments where they will be beyond the reach of those monitoring workplace health and safety standards or who are on the alert for other forms of exploitation (16) University of Toronto law professor Audrey Macklin argues ...[+++] that it is unreasonable to suppose that Bill C-17 will actually prevent individuals from entering Canada (17) Advocacy groups argue that to more effectively combat exploitation in strip clubs, the government should focus on ensuring health and safety standards in such establishments, investigate conditions in clubs that sponsor foreign exotic dancers, and carefully examine the reasons behind the apparent lack of Canadian women applying for such positions (18) They say that the government should target exploitation in strip clubs by improving workplace standards in those environments rather than targeting the women who apply for those jobs; the outcome of the government’s approach, they argue, will be to relegate Canadians to the jobs that it feels are too exploitative for foreign workers (19) This point was also made during second reading of the Bill in the House of Commons.

The Canadian Council for Refugees, the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada, Dancers’ Equal Rights Association, Stella, Exotic Dancers Association, and NakedTruth.ca argued that Bill C-17 might harm the very people it was trying to help by driving foreign exotic dancers into underground establishments where they would be beyond the reach of those monitoring workplace health and safety standards or who are on the alert for other forms of exploitation.