Alta. immigration minister says `Win A Wife’ contest in poor taste

EDMONTON – Alberta’s immigration minister says he will pull departmental advertising from Edmonton’s The Bear radio station while it runs a contest offering the chance to meet a Russian bride.

The “Win a Wife” contest offers men the chance to connect with potential brides through an international matchmaking service, along with a round-trip ticket to Moscow to meet the woman face to face.

Calling the contest and its accompanying promotions “in poor taste,” Thomas Lukaszuk said he has ordered his department to pull advertising from the station until the contest ends at the end of September.

“I think it would be in very poor taste of me, as a steward of taxpayer dollars, to pump dollars into advertising on that station and have my commercials side by side with these programs,” he said.

Rob Vavrek, brand director for The Bear, wrote in an email that the contest has generated a lot of misunderstanding among those unfamiliar with its rules and prizes.

“I’m sure this is the case with Mr. Lukaszuk,” Vavrek wrote, adding that the contest provides consenting adults the chance to meet “in the hopes of developing a serious relationship – a concept similar to many other contests held on reality TV,” such as the Bachelor and the Bachelorette.

Lukaszuk, who was born in Poland, said the argument that the women are consenting participants is “wrong.”

“In some parts of the world where women make themselves available to be Internet brides or through international dating agencies . . . they very seldom have that choice. They are either coerced into that position by despairing economic circumstances or they are coaxed into it by illegal elements,” he said.

Neither Vavrek or Lukaszuk could say how much the department of Employment and Immigration advertises on The Bear or what impact a suspension would have on the station.

Josephine Pallard, executive director of Changing Together: A Centre for Immigrant Women, was aghast at the contest’s concept, calling it “modern-day sex slavery.”

While acknowledging that some couples connected through international matchmaking services “live happily ever after,” Pollard said her organization has worked for nearly three decades to help others who have been victimized.