Gender and Immigration Law: The Recruitment of Domestic

conducted an aggressive overseas recruitment campaign focused on the emigration of women from Europe to British North America. These women were targeted specifically to be domestic workers, irrespective of their previous employment. The campaign ifs of interest because it designated female domestics as an independently desirable category of workers for Canada. No other group of women workers could claim this distinction. The government’s recruitment efforts were a part of its broader colonial ambitions to settle the Canadian west. It needed a legitimate means to provide suitable wives for single male farmers, and female domestics were the first choice. The immigration policy was also influenced by the class interests of Canadians who were concerned specifically with furnishing their homes with servants. In a more subtle way the policy reflected Vic-torian notions concerning the proper role for women in society-both as wives and maids. These different factors informing the Canadian government’s immigration policy reflected tensions and contradiction