I am deeply concerned that the city has decided to create a bylaw to discourage body rub parlours which is to include legitimate alternative healthcare practitioners in its regulations. I understand that there is difficulty dealing with bawdy houses masquerading as alternative health clinics, but to pass this problem onto alternative healthcare practitioners is unfair and totally unreasonable.
It is absurd and offensive to require a herbalist to obtain a criminal record check, or a homeopath to be examined yearly by a doctor to ensure s/he is free of communicable diseases. I imagine that council is tacitly referring to sexually transmitted diseases. Why should the city or anyone’s clients be aware of a practitioner’s HIV status, for example? And thank goodness registered massage therapists are provincially, regulated, otherwise I might be in trouble for working past 9pm certain evenings. Some other practitoners work early mornings, doing scandalous things like treating headaches, or
dispensing herbal supplements.
Council seems to believe that if practioners have nothing to hide, that they won’t mind this gross invasion of privacy and degrading treatment. I think
that they will mind, a lot.
Some councillors think that this bylaw won’t work any better than the ones in place in Hamilton and K-W, which according to May 25th’s Trib, are both amply supplied with common bawdy houses.
While the current plan may be to use these bylaws against suspicious establishments and leave the legitimate ones alone, once the bylaw is on the books, all alternative health practitioners not coming under a provincial regulatory body will be vulnerable to harassment. I don’t think the people of Guelph want the people they trust to support their wellness to be treated so shabbliy. MT