Head Tale

When I was in England on exchange in 1995, I would sometimes go to the college library and read the UK’s national papers.

I still remember looking at the Travel section of The Weekend Times and seeing an ad for a “Cross-Canada Adventure”.  After landing in the maritimes, you would take a coach through Quebec and Ontario, carry on through the majestic Canadian Shield to Winnipeg then catch a flight to Calgary, gateway to the Rockies.

At the time, I remember being *highly* offended – they advertise a cross-Canada tour, don’t skip the Canadian shield but still avoid Saskatchewan???

It took me nearly twenty years but I think I figured out why they’d skip Saskatchewan. As much as we want to believe we’re a world-class centre, as much as we long to join Calgary and Winnipeg as true mid-sized Canadian cities rather than engorged small towns, when it comes right down to it, we’re basically the Kansas or Nebraska of Canada – fly-over country.

That’s not just the flatness of our landscape or the agricultural base of our industry, it summarizes the backwards, morally conservative bent of our politics and rustic approach to life.

That was brought home in the worst fashion last night when, after recent changes to provincial legislation (themselves, long overdue), the Regina City Council still deemed it necessary to turn down an application for a <gasp> strip club by a vote of 9-1.

I don’t have much of a dog in this fight as my strip club days are long behind me (for the most part!) 😉

But I can’t help but laugh at the hypocrisy of the whole thing – our current Mayor and many councillors promoted our new stadium as a great way to put Regina on the map as a destination for big name concerts to an attraction for potential new residents.  Yet they line up, all in a row, and after a huge outcry by the moral minority, to turn down a strip club which, as has been pointed out numerous times through the debate, a pretty common feature in any major city – including other prairie cities like Winnipeg and Calgary.

It was also pointed out that Regina is home to massage parlours, sex toy shops, adult video stores and all kinds of other sex-related industries and activities.  The only councilor to vote in favour of the application, Shawn Fraser, apparently opened the yellow pages to demonstrate just how easy it was to find strippers in Regina already.

It was also interesting to see that this topic didn’t split perfectly along ideological lines – one leftie posted how, if city council truly cared about the harm being done to marginalized citizens, they do more about homelessness.  But another leftie I know was voicing her opposition on Twitter because of the harm that strip clubs can cause for women in terms of increased domestic violence, prostitution and other issues.  On the right, the biggest opposition seemed to come from religious people opposing the strip club on “Woe, think of the children!” and/or “Boobies are scary!” moral grounds.  But there were also righties who thought this was a legitimate business, meeting all regulations so there shouldn’t be a question as to whether it should pass or not.

(Side note:  Can we please start taxing churches that engage in political advocacy of this type?)

Anyhow, I can see the potential negatives but overall, I think having a strip club isn’t that big of a deal (and really, shows you’re more metropolitan than a shiny stadium in many ways!) and I am pretty disappointed that the Council was so opposed.  (As someone on Twitter observed: “Regina City Council turns in a 1950’s decision about a 1980’s issue”, just one sample of the online reaction.)

I didn’t contribute on Twitter myself, even though I thought it would be funny to point out what a hypocritical joke this whole thing is considering the bar that used to be in the same proposed location as the strip club was called JDs (aka “Just Dirties” to its regulars), regularly had drunken patrons quasi-copulating on the dance floor and in the booths, and was infamous for such classy moves as having “dildo races” on Ladies Night.

(Uhm, in case you’re not familiar, this particular activity involved putting sex toys on the floor, turning them on, then seeing which would “win” by inching its way outside of a circle on the floor…at least that’s what I heard!) 😉

In the end, Regina can trumpet its metropolitan ambitions all it wants.  But until the city actually starts acting like a 21st Century city, that’s nothing but talk.