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This study will examine critically the historical development of Canadian migration policies and administrative practices which regulated the importation and employment of immigrant live-in domestic workers in Canada during the period 1940-1990. The policy currently known as the Foreign Domestic Movement has an instructive historical development. While labour market policies in general have tended to increase workers' rights and protection in the last half of the twentieth century, the domestic workers policy has a history of sporadic regressiveness. This study shows that the dominant features of the domestic workers policy for the duration of its development were racist, sexist, and subject to class biases. It also contributes to an understanding of federal government migration policies which relate specifically to women and racial minority groups.