High school students in Edmonton will be targeted in a national recruiting blitz to repopulate strip clubs, according to the head of the Adult Entertainment Association of Canada.

The organization, which represents nearly 40,000 strippers, says a new decision by the federal government to refrain from issuing temporary visas or extensions for foreign strippers working here will cut their workforce by five per cent.

“They are trying to destroy the industry, and what it seems is younger women between 18 (and) 19 have been untouched,” said association director Tim Lambrinos.

Connie Fisher-Chessell, head of the parent council at W.P. Wagner School, said she can’t see the Edmonton Public School Board allowing any on-site recruitment at job fairs or anything similar, despite the fact strip clubs are a legal enterprise.

“To me … it’s an empty promise, an empty threat.”

- Connie Fisher-Chessell , W.P. Wagner School parent council chair

“Because the kids are mostly still under 18 when they graduate,” she said. “If someone chooses to do that and they’re 18 years old, that is up to them, but the school board is not going to have anything to do with it.

“I just can’t imagine them doing anything with it or for it.”

Dave Colburn, EPSB chair, said the board has yet to be approached by the organization, but that “it’s not something that’s interfaced with Edmonton Public.”

-With files from Jeremy Nolais