That will get everyone s attention in Toronto with its burgeoning 600 million dollar film business which translates into 12,000 largely Californian jobs and in Montreal which takes about 8,000 jobs out of America every year and is in direct competition with the Eastern seaboard and our Northern Tier States not to mention California. There is, my friends, a connection between the recent troubles of Olympic gymnast, Dominique Moceanu, Jon Benet Ramsey who suffered the indignities of the pageant world, and a connection between Jessica Dubroff who at seven years old lost her life in an airplane crash pursuing a meaningless aviation record and the kid suffering at that Little League field because Dad is berating him from the stands and the kids in this Industry who are being allowed to work all over the world where for the most part there are NO rules. There are no published labor laws for kids in entertainment in Ontario or Quebec, the current leaders in Canadian production. This is about US the way we treat children ours and the children of others. On Sunday, the 22nd of November, the Toronto Star writer Greg Quill, wrote an eight page expose of the real work place for children in Canada and in his well-researched article he speaks about the conspiracy of silence that surrounds this entire issue.
Big money is at stake.
Careers are at stake. Provincial economies, some feel, need the protection of silence even if it means children are routinely disadvantaged. The Bunkhouse Laws merely held that the rules of the employment game couldn t be changed because an employee crossed a border. I suggest that we make it plain that for American kids Canada will either play by our rules or they will not be allowed to import our children. This is OUR business.