Bringing strippers through the immigration system, trying to decriminalize marijuana and now. . . . . Canadian Taxpayers, the Hooker Junket

MPs want $200,000 for hooker junket Kathleen Harris, Sun Ottawa Bureau, Mar. 27, 05

OTTAWA -- A group of MPs studying Canada's prostitution laws is seeking $200,000 in federal funds to visit European cities with red-light zones and legal brothels. The five-member justice subcommittee plans to visit Britain, the Netherlands and Sweden. Reno, Nevada, is also on the destination list.

"We want to go to Sweden because they have a particular model there where they decriminalize the sex worker, or the prostitute, and they still criminalize the customers," said NDP MP Libby Davies.

"In the U.K. they actually allow women to work out of their own homes. [. . . . ]

Search: Canadian Taxpayers Federation, brothels and red-light districts, $143,678, $62,840, $25,328, $12,000, $43,500

I shall give these MP's the benefit of having good will -- at heart, meaning well, but . . .

On my first visit to the Netherlands, to Amsterdam, I was wandering and taking in the sights. I started to walk down a street and I saw women advertising themselves in big picture windows--perhaps it has changed today--but it was the saddest thing I had seen up to that point. I turned around and walked another way.

I would suggest that the MP's videotape what they see, the reality, and then show it in schools in Canada. Surely, no woman would choose that life. Why aid any woman's entry to the oldest profession in any manner? Why render it legal? (Perhaps it already is?)

This Parliamentary jaunt would be a hoot -- if if were not so serious for Canada. Here we have MP's, straight faced, actually going to use taxpayer $$$ for this fact-finding trip. Would someone please give them a tour of the seedier and druggier parts of this life here in Canada -- say in Vancouver? Save taxpayers some money.

Does anyone remember when one cabinet minister actually lost his job for visiting a club -- a club with scantily clad dancers? a strip club? I can't remember but it was an ignominious end for a Canadian minister of the crown.

The bottom line for me:

Is prostitution a positive good for society? Do you believe that harm reduction for women who are engaged in the "business" outweighs the harm that comes to a society that presents its impressionable young with the sight of legalized prostitution? Legalized strip /lap dancing clubs? Decriminalization won't wash away the connections with sexually transmitted diseases, drugs, even pimps, the whole filthy underbelly of the "business".

I still cannot believe this is a good for Canada. Of course if the government is able to truck the ones who will benefit to the polls come election day . . . another identifiable voting bloc -- soon to be identifiable by tracks on their arms? Or am I so lacking in knowledge of the "business" that I am wrong? Post your comments below.

I would have expected that Parliamentarians should openly discuss whether this is a wise idea, but, I know, Canadians don't really want the truth; they've been voting for huffing and puffing, empty promises, feigned outrage, and monumental BS for years. I despair.

Maybe I am shortsighted? Wrong? Then comment below.