About: The Story Behind Tattooing and Body Piercing in Canada.

Body Art:?Hardly. Most tattooists have little talent, little training, and must rely on stencils or "flash sheets" in order to stamp commercially mass produced cattle brands, meat grading ribbons and stamps, or stable labels, into your hide.

$34.00 for a hole through the nostril, or a nail in your head. Navels and nipple mutilation, will cost about $39.00. And if you are really experimental, you can get  genital circumcision for upwards of $73.00. Fortunately, body piercing (other than for ear rings) was never exactly main stream, and is rapidly declining in popularity; but it still causes concern for health authorities.  Health Canada now has some guidelines to deal with the prevention and control of infection in the tattoo and body piercing industry; but tattoo parlours and piercing studios are largely regulated the same way restaurants are regulated. Cities must perform inspections annually, or, when they receive a complaint of someone picking up a severe infection, or dying. But otherwise, it's a self regulated business.

TATTOO PARLOURS AND BODY PIERCING STUDIOS, BOTH PERFORM MEDICAL SURGERY; BOTH CREATE AN INCISION IN THE SKIN AND BOTH INTRODUCE A FOREIGN OBJECT INTO THE BODY but the Canadian govern does not consider either to be such. According to the Canadian government, these are COSMETIC???? procedures and anyone can buy the equipment and perform them, with absolutely no training.There is no set of federal rules, regulations, or laws to govern the industry. I, for one, find this very strange; because, when I first entered into the nursing field, care aids, nurses aids, or orderlies were not allowed to apply dressings, ointments, salves or even medicated creams or dandruff shampoos. If any of the people mentioned were to do so in a care home or hospital setting they could and undoubtedly would be charged with practising medicine without a licence. 

While in many countries it is a criminal offence to perform either  procedure on a minor, even with parental consent, in Canada there is no law that says you must be over the age of majority to use these services. However, just to protect themselves, many parlours do insist that those under the age of 18 provide written permission from a parent or guardian. Many of these letters are forged and some children go to parlours that do not require parental consent. Many of these facilities are in people's homes and are not subject to any inspections or standards.  

What is Tattooing?

Health Canada defines tattooing as the process of permanently depositing poisonous pigment into the skin to a depth of 1-2 mm to create a brand, design, or cargo stamp. An electronic machine vibrates a cluster of needles hundreds of times per minute to puncture or create an incision in the skin and deposit the pigment.The procedure dates back to 2000 B.C. as a tribal custom, preparation for war, or right passage (mark of sexual maturity) in many parts of the world including Africa, Asia, and possibly even North America.

 IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE: Early tattoo inks were obtained directly from nature and were extremely limited in pigment variety but they were also undoubtedly much safer. Today, an almost unlimited number of colours and shades of ink are mass-produced (often In China) and sold to parlours world wide. Untrained tattooists also commonly mix these inks (often from bottles used for a previous client) to create their own Unique??? pigments.

 What is Ear/body piercing

Ear/body piercing is the insertion of foreign object, often metal jewellery of uncertain content and origin; in to skin tissue; using an ear piercing gun or long needles. The most frequently pierced sites, according to Health Canada include, EARS, nose, navel, nipples, lip, tongue and genitals ("lip, and/or tongue piercing of females is usually done to increase the pleasure of oral sex, and insertion of studs or small plastic balls into male genitals done to increase the sexual sexual pleasure of the female").
Carla McPhie of Ajax Ontario, thought getting her tongue pierced would be fun and exciting, until it caused a brain infection 10 months later. She began getting throbbing headaches, eventually fell into seizure and was rushed to hospital where she had a large piece of her skull removed to treat a brain abscess. While this is an extreme case, the rate of infection in Canada from tattoos and piercings is very high.