West Indian Domestic Scheme | Strong and Free

Eva Bailey remembers her experience coming to Canada well. She arrived shortly after the West Indian Domestic scheme, a recruitment initiative that brought young women from English-speaking Caribbean countries to Canada as domestic workers from 1955 to 1967.

The audio in this story is from Strong and Free, a six-part podcast from Historica Canada, produced by Historica Canada. Because Black history is Canadian history.

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In the Strong and Free podcast, we learn about the West Indian Domestic Scheme, a recruitment initiative that Canada ran from 1955 to 1967, and the women who nurtured a nation. Participants in the Scheme were crucial to the economic and cultural growth of the country, and the Canadian idea of multiculturalism was built, in part, on the backs of these women.

We also speak with associate professor Karen Flynn, who explores the feminist revolution as well as the social mobility this immigration scheme encouraged.