Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alina Balaican

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. JForget 02:58, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Alina Balaican[edit]

Alina Balaican (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log • AfD statistics)
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Non-notable person involved in minor political scandal. No other noteworthy qualifications. Recommend delete. Suttungr (talk) 17:55, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete; WP:BLP1E. The scandal itself is more than adequately covered by Judy Sgro's article; we don't need separate biographical articles about other individuals who were involved but aren't notable for anything else. Bearcat (talk) 18:01, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete, per nom. PKT(alk) 18:35, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Canada-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:54, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Politics-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 18:55, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete/merge/redirect to Judy Sgro. THF (talk) 19:05, 27 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -- I started this article -- in 2005. In 2005 there was no WP:BLP, and thus no blp1e. WRT merging to Judy Sgro -- I don't think this is appropriate. Sgro was the Minister of Immigration for barely a year. The general phenomenon of Canada giving skilled worker visas to foreign dancers -- mainly Romanians, was of long-standing. Following this nomination I did some homework. There have been at least four Romanian dancers who came to Canada who have received significant news coverage. The other three received that coverage either before, or after, Ms Sgro was the Minister.
    • Reply Just because this article predated the WP:BLP policy doesn't mean that it should be grandfathered. The article still needs to meet those guidelines or else be removed. EncyclopediaUpdaticus (talk) 21:07, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Who is recommending grandfathering? I recommended the creation of an article on the topic of Canada issuing over a thousand skilled worker visas to Romanian women to work in the sex trade. This is something that I think undeniably can be documented. The issuing of these visas were issued during the time when seven ministers were in this portfolio: Elinor Caplan, Denis Coderre, Judy Sgro, Joe Volpe, Monte Solberg, Diane Finley, and Jason Kenney. I think it is an extremely bad idea to bury coverage of this notable, controversial program in the articles on individual Ministers of Immigration. Geo Swan (talk) 02:04, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -- I strongly disagree with the assertion, repeated several times here, that "the scandal itself is more than adequately covered by Judy Sgro's article." Among the details not currently covered in the Sgro article are:
    • Balaican married a Canadian man, and as the spouse of a Canadian she was entitled to apply for both Canadian citizenship, and a less restrictive visa, which would allow her to apply for jobs outside of the exotic dancer industry.
    • Balaican had been fined $250 because a patron at the exotic dance club had touched her body in a way prohibited by law. She had subsequently quit dancing.
    • Because Balaican had quit dancing her skilled worker visa was no longer valid, and a determination had not yet been made as to whether she was entitled to the new less restrictive visa she was entitled to apply for.
    • Special "Minister's permits" are routine in cases like hers -- special permits that allow the applicant to remain in Canada until the determination is made as to whether they qualify for a new different visa.
    • After the controversy broke Balaican and her husband wrote a public letter in which they stated that they never met Sgro, and there was no quid pro quo.
    • Bernard Shapiro, then the Canadian Parliament's Ethics Commissioner published a 64 page report on his investigation into whether Sgro had violated ethical standards. This report uses Balaican's name 53 times.
    • Shapiro's report concluded that Sgro had not in fact met Balaican or Mulholland, and was unaware when she signed the routine Minister's permit that Balaican and Mulholland had volunteered to work on her re-election campaign. But he also concluded that some of her campaign staff were aware, and he faulted her for having campaign staff who put her in the position of appearing to be in an ethical conflict.
      • Reply WRT your comments, pts 1-3 are irrelevant to Sgro. The remaining points are relevant and if properly sourced could be included in the Sgro article. EncyclopediaUpdaticus (talk) 21:07, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
So, no, I do not agree that "the scandal itself is more than adequately covered by Judy Sgro's article." Could these other elements be shoehorned into the Sgro article? Maybe. It could trigger a concern that the Sgro article was being soapboxed, and stuffed with details that really belonged in another article. Geo Swan (talk) 18:13, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -- Other Romanian dancers in Canada, of note, include: Geo Swan (talk) 18:13, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Loredana Silion -- In 1999 Silion sued the Canadian government in order to get a skilled worker's visa. Her visa application had been turned down. She had worked as a topless dancer in Romania. She had not worked as a nude dancer. The Ministry of Immigration employee charged with determining whether she was entitled to a skilled workers visa to work as a nude dancer in Canada decided that her previous experience as a topless dancer wasn't sufficiently related.
      • Mark Heinzl (1999-04-05). "Canada's Government Gets Skimpy With Work Visas for Exotic Dancers". Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 2010-02-02. Retrieved 2010-02-02. The Canadian government, peeling her art of its euphemisms, calls the 22-year-old Ms. Silion a stripper and won't issue a work permit. Forced to cool her heels in her hometown of Brasov, Romania, where she dances for the equivalent of about $5 a night, she has sued in Canada's Federal Court to force its hand.
      • "Stripper not naked enough for Canada". Independent Online. 2000-01-15. Retrieved 2010-03-01. Experience as a topless dancer in Romania was not enough to qualify her for the job, the judge found.
    2. Alina Balaican -- details above
    3. "Andreea" -- the stage name of a Romanian dancer whose father is a Romanian diplomat, who tried to get her visa changed to let her switch from one club to another.
    4. Irene Gabriela Astanoaiei -- a medical doctor who came to Canada in 1999 to pursue her medical career. The process through which doctors with foreign medical credentials become certificated to practice in Canada is long, expensive, and problematic. She started working as an exotic dancer as she tried to navigate these channels. She disappeared under mysterious circumstanced in 2008.
  • Merge to an article entitled something like Romanian dancers in Canada, to cover the issuing of skilled worker visas to Romanian dancers, to cover those like the four I noted above, who have been covered in WP:RS, and to cover what can be said of the other 996 or so who haven't been covered. Minister Sgro didn't start the controversial practice of giving temporary work visa to exotic dancers. And she didn't end the practice. So it is inappropriate to shoehorn this material into her article. In 2008 Diane Finley, who was then Minister of Immigration, had bodyguards assigned because she had received "Numerous threats, of an escalating nature" -- stemming from her plans to introduce legislation permanently prohibiiting giving temporary visas to exotic dancers. The program itself merits coverage, separate from the articles on the Ministers of Immigration who happen to be in office when incidents occur. Geo Swan (talk) 18:13, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Terry Pedwell (2008-04-23). "Minister threatened over 'stripper law'". Toronto Star. Archived from the original on 2010-02-28. Security has been tightened around Immigration Minister Diane Finley following threats related to Conservative efforts to keep foreign strippers out of Canada. Numerous threats, of an escalating nature, have been made against the minister in recent weeks, several sources have told The Canadian Press. The exact nature of the threats was not revealed, but sources say they are directly linked to Bill C-17, the government's anti-stripper legislation. The sources hinted at an organized crime connection.
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Sexuality and gender-related deletion discussions. —Geo Swan (talk) 18:16, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note: This debate has been included in the list of Romania-related deletion discussions. —Geo Swan (talk) 18:17, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete - poorly referenced trivia that violates BLP1E. LadyofShalott 18:48, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • First, the topic of Canada giving temporary "skilled worker" visas to over a thousand Romanian women to work in the sex trade is not "trivial". Second please be more careful about labelling material violations of WP:BLP when that material was contributed prior to the existence of a WP:BLP. Similarly the standards for referencing were much looser in 2005. The {{cite}} templates and <ref>, </ref>, <reference/> tags hadn't been written yet. WRT "poorly referenced" I spent a couple of hours looking for references to the Alina Balaican case. I found dozens. I could have added some of those references to the article -- bringing the references up to our current standards. But, like the rest of us, I have an obligation to act in the best interests of the project. In my opinion what would best serve the project would not be an article on Alina Balaican, but an article on the long, controversial and convoluted history of Canada giving temporary visas to Romanian women to work in the sex trade. That was my good faith suggestion, immediately above this opinion. It is a suggestion for which I think provided meaningful explanation. And I am disappointed to find it is a suggestion the respondent above has simply not addressed -- almost as if they didn't bother reading the opinions of other respondents here. Geo Swan (talk) 19:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • You're right that there might well be a valid article to be had on the larger phenomenon. But this AFD isn't about that; it's about whether we need an unsourced biography of Alina Balaican herself. Nobody in this discussion has said that the issue was trivial — but the names and biographies of individual women involved in it certainly are. Bearcat (talk) 19:38, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong delete per WP:NOTNEWS, WP:BLP1E. As the article explains, her name is only of interest because it was picked up by the press among many hundreds of other dancers in a similar situation. Pcap ping 16:32, 2 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete per Pcap, THF. Possibly redirect afterwords. RayTalk 19:52, 3 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delete. WP:BLP1E applies. Niteshift36 (talk) 02:26, 6 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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