The Adult Entertainment Association of Canada (AEAC; also called the Adult Association of Canada) is a coalition of strip club owners and their agents that represents 53 of the 140 strip clubs in

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Tim Lambrinos is the organization's director.

History

The Exotic Dancers' Alliance (EDA), a collective that was founded in 1995 to bring together both former and current strippers and their supporters, sought to establish minimum employment standards for strippers in Ontario by contending with the AEAC, but the EDA ceased to exist in 2004. Also in 2004, Ottawa instituted a law against lap dancing, and the AEAC unsuccessfully attempted to have the law overturned in 2007. Starting in 2004, the AEAC and the

Department of Citizenship and Immigration Canada Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC; french: Immigration, Réfugiés et Citoyenneté Canada)Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is the applied title under the Federal Identity Program since 2015; the legal title is Departm ...

became embroiled in a long-standing controversy about work permits for

foreign worker Foreign workers or guest workers are people who work in a country other than one of which they are a citizen. Some foreign workers use a guest worker program in a country with more preferred job prospects than in their home country. Guest worke ...

s to be hired for the purpose of striptease. In 2008, when

Minister of Citizenship and Immigration The minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship (french: Ministre de l'immigration, des réfugiés et de la citoyenneté) is a minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet. The minister is responsible for Immigration, Refugees and Citi ...

Diane Finley Diane Finley (born October 3, 1957) is a former Canadian politician. From 2006 through 2015, she served in the cabinet of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Her ministerial portfolios included Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, M ...

allegedly received

threat A threat is a communication of intent to inflict harm or loss on another person. Intimidation is a tactic used between conflicting parties to make the other timid or psychologically insecure for coercion or control. The act of intimidation for co ...

s from

sex industry The sex industry (also called the sex trade) consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of sex-related ...

officials in relation to her support of Bill C-17, which sought to allow

immigration officer An immigration officer is a law enforcement official whose job is to ensure that immigration legislation is enforced. This can cover the rules of entry for visa applicants, foreign nationals or those seeking asylum at the border, detecting an ...

s to deny temporary

visas Visa most commonly refers to: *Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Visa Plus, an interbank network *Travel visa, a document that allows ...

to prospective strippers if they were suspected to be sex trafficking victims, Lambrinos said that "it's not plausible" that any of the AEAC strip clubs were responsible for the threats. In 2009, the AEAC invited

Toronto City Council Toronto City Council is the governing body of the municipal government of Toronto, Ontario. Meeting at Toronto City Hall, it comprises 25 city councillors and the mayor of Toronto. The current term began on November 15, 2022. Structure The c ...

members to attend a free lunch at a strip club in the city, and three

councillor A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries. Canada Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...

s accepted the invitation. The AEAC released a statement in 2010 that the government's crackdown on sex industry worker visas had resulted in a stripper shortage, and

Minister of Public Safety The minister of public safety (french: ministre de la sécurité publique) is the minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet responsible for overseeing Public Safety Canada, the internal security department of the Government of Canada. The ...

Vic Toews Victor Toews (; born September 10, 1952) is a Paraguayan-Canadian politician and jurist. Toews is a judge of the Court of King's Bench of Manitoba. He represented Provencher in the House of Commons of Canada from 2000 until his resignation on ...

responded by saying that the strip clubs that were short on strippers because of the crackdown were engaging in human trafficking. Toews then ordered the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

to investigate the relevant strip clubs in order to determine whether or not the strippers working there were

illegal immigrants Illegal immigration is the migration of people into a country in violation of the immigration laws of that country or the continued residence without the legal right to live in that country. Illegal immigration tends to be financially upwa ...

or sex trafficking victims, and the AEAC launched a campaign to deny these allegations.

References

{{reflist Trade associations based in Ontario Strip clubs in Canada Entertainment industry associations