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Episode 6: Jamaica

Falen: And This is a good time to remind people of this and everyone, including myself is looking at the vacation.

Leah: Yeah I mean that tie into colonialism especially that bond between the United Kingdom and the West Indies is also why there's a historical bond between the Caribbean and Canada. And so we're going to look at that today and service and labor.

Falen: So when did people from the Caribbean start coming to Canada. And why did they come. Well the earliest record of West Indians coming to Canada was in 1796. This surprised me because based on everything I knew and everything I knew was based on nothing because I never checked it out. The majority of West Indians came over in maybe the 1970s or the 80s but the first West Indians to arrive in Canada were Jamaican Maroons. Maroons were enslaved people that escaped and ran into the forest and made lives there. They joined the Black loyalists and African Canadians in Nova Scotia.

Falen: That's so cool! I did not know any of that. So that's before Canada was even Canada.

Leah: That's right.

Falen: For more on that you can check out our Birch Town episode in season one that explores slavery in Canada. We'll add a link to the episode on our website.

Leah: So after that in the early 1900s is a small number of Jamaicans and Bajan's would come over to work the mines in Cape Breton and Sydney. I just want to say again that this was a major discovery to me and I think it will be for Canadians who are descended from people from the Caribbean or are from the Caribbean living in Canada because with many black people living here there's a perception that A) you're not from here, like you just aren't and, B) you must have just got here.

Falen: Right.

Leah: And one of the biggest reasons more people started arriving was for jobs and that meant working the railroad. The railroad in fact would be for better or for worse one of the largest employers of black men these men would be more commonly known as sleeping car porters.

Falen: And what, what's a sleeping car porter?

Leah: Ok, I had to figure this out too. So at one time in history for a longtime Train was the way to travel if you're going cross country you would sleep and eat for several days on the train at there were much nicer than the trains that we're currently traveling in now. Porters were hired to take care of passengers. Every needs they would carry bags change bed sheets clean shoes wash clothes. I mean they did everything. This was a job held almost exclusively by black men because they had no other job opportunities at the time the hours were long and the pay was low. Here is a clip of two former porters Judge Stanley Grizzell and Ray Lewis from the NFIB film The Black Experience in Canada detailing what their work was like as a porter.

Stanley Grizzell & Ray Lewis: The porter on the railroad was the bottom of the barrel. Even the news agent received more respect. You were their servants. You made the bed, you clean the toilets, you cleaned the spittoons, that's a word you don't hear now. Cuspidor or spittoon and in those days most men spit. I cleaned them I shined the shoes. I cleaned messy beds. But this is all I could get.

Falen: The railway...Can we just, can we just talk about the railway. It's super messed up.

Leah: Its messed up, yeah mmhmm.

Falen: Like you think about the railroad and its history in this country and you think about how it was built to help unify the country and that was the only way Confederation was ever going to happen was if this railway was created. So they bring in all these Chinese guys to build the thing that kick indigenous people off the land. Get out of the way and then they put black people inside to serve the white people.

Leah: Yeah and I didn't know that black people had any connection really historically to the railroad. Like I did not. I will confess until when I started this episode I thought it was going to be about something else about the Caribbean and I was like Who were these guys that I didn't know. And this story is so interesting because all of these men and a lot of the women in their lives doing this job lead them to become activists and that activism allowed for more people from the Caribbean to come to Canada. Many of us who are from the Caribbean or have parents from the Caribbean who came here owe a lot to the Sleeping Car Porters. I mean I am sitting here next to you, Why? Sleeping Car Porters.

Falen: Really? OK, How? Tell me more.

Leah: Ok so I talked to Professor Sage Mathieu author of North of the color line migration and black resistance in Canada. I asked her if she could tell me more about who they were and why they're such an important piece of the Caribbean immigration story. What surprised me in this interview was the reason so many West Indians teens got here was because the railway started running out of African-Americans to hire for these jobs and black Canadians. But I'll just let her tell you more.

Saje Mathieu: Hi. I'm Saje Mathieu, I'm an associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota. I think we have to remember that the turn of the 20th century was really the heyday of railway travel and the Pullman Company had since the mid 19th century really cornered the market on this opulent way of traveling where I suppose we could imagine it like the Titanic put on rails right. Beautiful service great food. And with that came the idea that you had to have these black men in a position of service and a position of submission. In many respects for these wealthy white railway passengers and can't forget that the presence of the Canadian Pacific Railway was American at this time. Who knew the industry inside out and he wanted to rival his American competitors and did so by bringing in the same kinds of tropes right. So not only does CP want black men but it wants a very particular kind of black men when ideally with a Southern accent who is a little bit urbane but not too much not So much that he has political ideas or worse ideas about unions. And you know one who can play the part. And in order to get that kind of man CP Sends out its agents to various of parts the American South and tries to handpick as many porters as they can who are also the right kind of Brown not too pale not too dark who are what we would today call university age and ideally but not necessarily with some experience working around. So we begin by having black Canadians and to a lesser extent African Americans working on the rail the Canadian companies are quite successful at encouraging African Americans to come in Canada. Not that far. It's not inconvenient. You also speak English and so why not try that out for a six-month contract especially if the correction to unemployment. But the Canadian Porter service grows so quickly that it can't keep fueling the program entirely with black Canadians. So as the Canadian Pacific Railway and its steamship branch extend into the Caribbean in the first decade of the 20th century. Then the company realizes that it has this entire pool of workers that they can start to encourage you know as future sleeping car porters so we get West Indian porters as early as the 1910s maybe you know earlier than that coming on C.P. Steamships to work in Canada for C.P. rail, C.P. also gets a lot of African American workers from Chicago. A huge railway hub right to a lesser extent from Detroit. A little bit from Minneapolis somewhat from New York. And with this ease of travel you could work on the Canadian rails. Go back home to New York or Chicago. These makes the job appealing. So what we have to remember is that I mean as much as the Canadian Railroad is a powerful icon for how we imagine the birth of Canada it is as important in terms of creating and shaping early black life in Canada. So it is a railroad that brings people, Black people to Canada. It Is the railroad that is the chief employer of black people in Canada. Employment patterns on the railroads determined where black people will live in Canadian cities. So you couldn't shake a stick at a black person in know prior to World War 2 without hitting some porters. I mean that's how important that employer and the auxiliary culture around that kind of work becomes for black Canadian life. While we have the image of a porter as someone one who has a broad smile is very welcoming when you arrive on the rails pens to your every need actual job of Sleeping Car portering was very difficult. The men had to come to the railway station several hours before the trains were ready to depart in order to equip them in order to make sure that they were clean in order to make sure that all of the kids that they would need to shirt and shoes and repair clothing were all in the right place. The porters then had to cater to every single whim of a passenger. They had to be answer questions about what people were seeing outside the window had to quickly make up beds, convert the seats into berths and then convert them right back into seats if that was people wanted. Many of the porters I spoke with remembered fondly taking care of young children who were traveling across the country by themselves. Their parents entrusted them to Sleeping Car Porters. One of the things that I heard most often from retired Sleeping Car Porters is that an especially difficult part of the job was also not knowing how they would be accused and fearing for their personal safety and their jobs. So some porters reported that drunk passengers sometimes threatened to throw them off the train. This in particular when running on trips Churchill. So the added fear of being polar bear country and ice cold terrain with something more porters than I ever expected told me about. Porters were nervous about inadvertent contact especially with white women. And if no one can imagine being on a train it moves around, it jerked around. You could see how someone could lose their balance and then be accused of having fondled someone. So you know the work was physically challenging the porters were not allowed to sleep on. Sometimes you know 18, 20 hour runs, but in addition to that there was a psychological or emotional component that the porters told me you know was in some respects as hard as the job itself.

Falen: Has the railway ever apologized for any of that behavior?

Leah: That's a good question I don't know.

Falen: I just I feel like that's such a big part of that such a big part of again the country's history of this railway. And the only reason that those that that was possible is because of these men so.

Leah: Yeah your job would come with so much potential of violence simply because you were black.

Falen: Yeah.

Leah: I can't imagine the anxiety and the fear and the the kind of face that you would have to put on and kind of the persona that you would have to wear to kind of navigate that every day. And here's the other thing Canada was really segregated. I mean not by law like the U.S. but in everyday practice I sat down and talked to Christopher Stuart Taylor a historian and author of Flying Fish In The Great White North. The Autonomists migration of black Barbadians.

Christopher Stuart Taylor: Because of legalized segregation in the U.S. What we know as Jim Crow. You had separate schools. So we're looking at historically black colleges and universities. We're looking at separate school systems. By being in the separate school systems. Black people could then become a black doctor or a black lawyer. On the flip side in Canada we didn't have that we had defacto segregation and if we look at say for example in the school system there's something in 1850 called the common schools act. Where. You could legally because of this act create a school based on race. And in theory it was well OK. Black people you can have your own school white people you can have your own school. Great. Fantastic. But we all know in reality what happened was white people would have schools and black people have no funds to go to school whatsoever. Right. So then when we had this de facto segregation in this country. In the U.S. You knew where you stood. You knew you couldn't go here. Law defines that. But in Canada you're always and you talk about anti black racism today. We're always in this weird space that the law says it's OK for me to be black and I'm going to say I identify as a gender heterosexual black male. It's OK for you to walk down the street. But as we all know particularly in news stories that are always popping up left right and center. It's quite dangerous for someone who looks like myself presents as myself walking down the street. And so we're in this this weird space that historically Canada has never really said to the extent of the U.S. That it's not as bad but the fact that we don't talk about it does that make it worse?

Leah: So you see the tie from then to today that a lot has change but things haven't really changed you know and early immigrants who came to work in places like the railway faced a lot of that racism the fear the paranoia from passenger's porters were also called George as a blanket way to remove their identities. And we've seen this story a lot in the history that we have looked at so far in the podcast. Canada wanted their labor but not them. In fact, the Canadian government went to great lengths to dissuade and out and now banned black West Indians from staying in Canada. By 1911 black people were for all intents and purposes actively discouraged from coming to the country.

Falen: OK, but wait, so the Canadian government started putting policies in place. Yeah but then how did the porters keep arriving and getting jobs then.

Leah: Okay great So C.P. rail was powerful, really powerful in fact and they essentially circumvented the rules and were able to bring in hundreds of people to work as porters. Year after year because they did so by hiring them on short term contracts.

Falen: OK, so it was like work for us but then go back to where you came from.

Leah: Exactly, and one of the reasons that African-Americans and African Canadians and West Indians were used on the railroad is because they were not unionized and could not unionize in a lot of circumstances.

Falen: Right.

Leah: Most of them were not landed immigrants or citizens. They were essentially powerless. And this brings us to why we don't have the province of the Bahamas or the province of Barbados or Jamaica. So I asked Professor Mathieu to tell me why with all of this needing black labor and not wanting anyone to stay. Canada was considering having provinces in the Caribbean and I mean a lot of what she says blew my mind. And it also made me realize all of the things that you see in the Caribbean that you might not think about that are really distinctly Canadian. I mean in Barbados I've never had a problem going there and going to the bank because the bank is the Bank of Nova Scotia or a Royal Bank.

Falen: That is so...Interesting.

Leah: So there has been this very deep bond and tie that you know you don't question or really think about you're just like oh this is convenient and it's convenient for people from there who come here. Right.

Falen: Right.

Leah: It makes it convenient for both of us. But why. Why has that been put in place. Well she's going to tell us.

Saje Mathieu: On the one hand Canada gets an introduction to the possibilities in the Caribbean through companies like the Canadian Pacific Railway and steamship right so we Royal Bank of Canada goes into the Caribbean and it starts setting up a banking network around the 1910s, 1920s. And so as Canadians corporations and entrepreneurs turn a gleaming eye towards the Caribbean initially for its labor but later for its greater possibility. What we get is actually a clash of ideas between those Canadians who want to have more of an imperial presence in the Caribbean. And by WWI even make the case to London that as the White Dominion in the Americas Canadians are the best suited to be the overseer and protectors of the Caribbean. And that in having that responsibility they would also be playing a particularly important role in maintaining white supremacy of the Caribbean. So what we don't realize is the extent to which Canada came pretty close to having a Caribbean island as a new province between World War One and World War II and the islands of choice for Canadians for some time was Jamaica. Then there was a bounce over to what about the Bermuda. And of course England would have none of it as both of those islands were lucrative important market. In addition to being sort of feathers in the British crown. Right. So but nonetheless Canadians have not abandoned this movement to have a Caribbean island of its own until well after World War Two. And what we don't realize is that we got Newfoundland instead of Jamaica as a concession from England.

Leah: Amazing, amazing. I mean this is yes it's so fascinating and I was so surprised how long the conversation about possibly doing this went on.

Saje Mathieu: Oh yeah there was a professional magazine develops to sort of the idea of a Caribbean island there's so much you see radical changes in the kinds of advertising in Canadian newspapers and magazines that we're promoting tropical fruit. We're making the case for going to the Caribbean for holidays. All of this to sell Canadians on the idea that you know having a Caribbean island just as the U.S. has Puerto Rico for example that this would be good for a modern Canada. The problem is the the black folks that are in the Caribbean. And to what extent their incorporation would rattle Canadian democracy and in effect we decide that it would be too frightening an enterprise. Right. How do we disenfranchise the black Caribbean's without well taking one step closer to being a whole lot like Americans who just enfranchise African-Americans the oath Canadians who were for amalgamation with the Caribbean made the argument that as a modern nation Canada needed to quote it own "deep south". And so imagine the weight of that language right. You get a hot base where the labor is mostly black and and toiling in a state of fear.

Falen: So that took a turn. OK so what she's saying is that Canada wanted the islands in the Caribbean as a quick dual citizenship way for for vacations and holidays trade and labor. But I didn't really want to do that.

Leah: Because white Canada was afraid of black people. They realized Oh wait if we do that than black people come here.

Falen: Really one sided relationship.

Leah: Yeah it's interesting because one of the reasons floated out there as to why it would be great to have a Caribbean island is so in a way black people wouldn't leave. Like one side was like oh we'll come here and the other side was like No they won't leave. Like if we just go there they'll just stay there and they'll you know do our bidding. A big reason that many migrants were given as to why they couldn't come to Canada was because they couldn't handle the cold. In fact, I would like you Falen to read from an approved order by the cabinet of Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier our seventh prime minister on August 12th 1911.

Falen: For a period of one year from and after the date here of the landing in Canada shall be and the same in prohibited of any immigrants belonging to the Negro race which race is deemed unsuitable to the climate and requirements of Canada.

Leah: Sir Wilfrid Laurier y'all our 7th Prime Minister.

Falen: Like I don't know what he sounded like.

Leah: It was great. I think you sounded just like him. Well obviously he didn't write that but yeah. So while all of this is going on there are other people trying to come over and work and they are getting thrown in jail after their short term work visas expired with no recourse to fight it because Canada made it clear we don't want you here. But then everything changed.

Falen: And this all happened because in the 60s liberal governments the Liberal governments of Lester B Pearson and Pierre Elliott Trudeau. They wanted to change immigration in Canada so they did this by putting together important legislation like the 1966 white paper on immigration.

Leah: It really changed immigration rules in Canada and it basically was the beginning of the Declaration of Canadian multiculturalism.

Falen: Right and so that just kind of like it opened the doors a little more?

Leah: Hugely so. Yeah.

Falen: Right.

Leah: I think hugely so it was still let me just say like it's still difficult to come here but it was made easier by that legislation for sure.

Falen: Right.

Leah: And Trudeau I mean Trudeau Sr for a lot of older people from the Caribbean he's seen as like a rock star like he was a rock star in his day. Strangely if you watch videos on him it's like screaming girls running after his car. But yes the White Paper was a big big deal in terms of a lot of people from all over the world coming over.

Falen: And it's so interesting because when I hear the white paper I think of something completely different.

Leah: What do you think of?

Falen: There was this white paper that was also pushed by Pierre Elliott Trudeau and Jean Chretien in the 60s the late 60s. And so what that white paper wanted to do was terminate the Indian Act dissolve all treaties and make all indigenous people in Canada, Canadians. So that would that would also dissolve a lot of our inherent rights as you know as the original inhabitants of this land.

Leah: Why these papers all got to be white?

Falen: Why these papers all got to be white indeed, Leah. So the paper was ultimately the white paper that I'm talking about was well ultimately withdrawn in 1970 because the backlash against it was so intense. Jean Chretien at the time is quoted as saying.

Leah: We'll keep them in the ghetto as long as they want.

Falen: OK so at the beginning of the episode you mentioned that these black porters that we've been speaking about they became activists in Winnipeg. How did that all happen. Well yeah this is fascinating because it was really the people from the Caribbean that actually ended up changing the immigration system. And that brings me to a man named John Arthur Robinson. He would start the order of the sleeping car porters here's Dr. Mathieu again as she explains how the porters organized and how the women of the community became so central to the fight.

Saje Mathieu: At the core. Robinson is a union man. We have to remember that he's in a city steeped in union thinking and union work. It is no mistake that it is the site of the greatest union strike in Canada in 1990. And Robinson walks past these people every day to and from work. hears them on the rails. He has his own vision of protecting but also uniting black workers so his union model is a national one from the beginning. And I thought that that was really important because Canadian identity as a whole is discussed regionally right, we're from Central Canada Western Canada or the maritime when in fact black life at the beginning of the 20th century certainly fell within those parameters as well. But there was nevertheless an effort to bridge black life nationally and for the sleeping car porters and their actual physical work on the rails did much of that unification and so Robinson is trying to convince black folks that look we're getting a raw deal we're working on the exact same trains going to the exact same locations but these white workers get paid vacations and the concept of having workman's comp to use today's language and we do not we have no protection. With respect to the danger that we face at work. Unemployment etc. If we form unions, we have a place to start. And so what I love about the order of Sleeping Car Porters that this small cluster of men cooked up an idea that caught on across the country so porters in the Maritimes porters in Montreal porters in Toronto porters in Calgary and Edmonton and Vancouver all signed onto the order of Sleeping Car Porters and in so doing were able to stand up to the biggest corporation in Canada The Canadian Pacific Railway and say Not no not no way not no how. Not one more minute will we be exploited and that they succeeded where other unions had failed. It's for me quite exceptional the story. The order of works for two different reasons in my mind is to really delicious tricks were happening in plain sight first you know the very invisibility that came with being a porter like they're just the people who carry our bags and shine our shoes. Nobody pays attention to that until they're a nuisance meant that foreigners can sort of do all this work right beneath the CPR's nose they could appear to just be any shoes are in effect for trading ideas about when you know what they should do when the next meetings would occur. These guys we're also masons and so the importance of a culture of secrecy was at the heart of their unionization. So sometimes they held their meetings at their Masonic lodges and under the guise of using the Masonic events but they were nonetheless planning. The other thing that porters did and it was brilliant is to have their wives' sisters mothers and other loved ones doing the work for them. So in other words the men would tell the women of their lives here's what we're going to negotiate here's what we want and while they were away on the rails and could not be accused of having had any sort of union talk communist union talk in effect their wives or what he's doing the kinds of things that women were expected to do birthday parties and piano recitals and it is in those moments that the women would all get together and say Look tell your husband that my husband said the next March has happened that day unlike in the United States black women in Canada could not be porters. So in the United States they had women working on the rails in the same capacity. But in addition to that they also had to serve as hairstylists and makeup artists and could be fired instantly if not again with this rocking train that accidentally snipped someone's hair or you know ruined their makeup. The fact that in Canada women could not porter meant that the most lucrative job available to black people was completely unavailable to Black women right that they couldn't turn to that as a way of feeding their families whether they were single parents or in two parent households who both needed to work. This is a problem but nonetheless black women become instrumental in capturing recording publishing the life of the railway of life black people in Canada. They are the journalists. These women are the ones who were writing into the Chicago Defender as a New York Age the Pittsburgh Courier the big African-American newspapers who by the late teens and certainly the early 20s dedicates entire pages to black life in Canada. So a fantastic source for people interested in black Canadian history to sort of turn to and take a close look at it is these women who are writing about black children born in Canada. Black children who are winning a scholarship to study in Canada and Europe or the United States who are recording the deaths of loved ones in the black communities so without the Sleeping Car Porters wives and daughters and sisters and mothers we would have lost that black voice.

Falen: So these women were the keepers of the knowledge and in a way right. And they could they could sort of get the word out.

Leah: Yeah they told the story. And I mean they were really central to organizing and you know strength in numbers right. This was a community led initiative. And there was a man by the name of Donald Moore who was really part of the sleeping car porters in the early days he saw this organizing and it led him to think he could change government policy on West Indian immigration.

Falen: And where was he from originally.

Leah: OK well he was from Barbados but in my defense I just go where the history takes me and I can't help it if Bajan's have significantly contributed to the history of the world as we know it.

Falen: Hey I feel you. I like shout out Haudenosaunee every time I call that time don't worry about it.

Leah: Our show should just be called Six Nations and other stuff... Anyway back to Donald Moore, So Donald Moore was from Barbados. He immigrated to the United States and then he eventually came to Montreal. He got here in the early 1900's and then he got work as a sleeping car porter. After that he went into Dalhousie university to become a dentist. He did that in 1918. He got sick couldn't basically finish school and then he purchased a dry cleaning business. And this business became the meeting place for immigrants from the Caribbean. It was the home base also for the Negro citizenship Association.

Falen: And so he was in Toronto at this point.

Leah: Yes, it was in Toronto when the Negro Citizenship Association the NCA was founded. The motto became dedicated to the promotion of a better Canadian citizen.

Falen: The Association wanted to challenge the government who are denying black West Indians entry into Canada and to stop the government from jailing migrants who were trying to stay here.

Leah: Yeah by 1954 Donald Moore led the negro citizenship association to Ottawa. They were joined by Labor unions and community and they presented a brief on immigration to Canada's Minister of Citizenship and Immigration. Walter E. HARRIS This brief highlighted Canada's discriminatory immigration laws against people from the Caribbean and described the impact. You know Donald Moore worked with a lot of these people he saw people being jailed or you know being shut out of Canada's immigration system even though they had been working here for years. One of those delegates remembers Donald Moore's presentation to the minister.

Falen: In his opening remarks which were profound. Don told the minister that PC 2856 which enlarged the pool of admissible classes of European immigrants while shutting out blacks from the British Commonwealth was discriminatory and dangerous. He also reminded him that Negroes fought in the war of 1812 and that William Hall was the first Negro to receive the Victoria Cross. In October 1859 after valiantly defending a British garrison in India.

Leah: So it worked in a way it led to change in the Canadian immigration laws and opened the door for West Indian nurses and domestics to find employment in Canada. By 1955 Moore's work with the governments of Jamaica Barbados and Canada enabled domestics to gain permanent residency after one year of work which they were never able to achieve before and that open door came because of his and his associations activism that stand from the activism of the sleeping car porters for little more on domestic workers. Here's Christopher Stuart Taylor again.

Christopher Stuart Taylor: And in 1955 they had something called a domestic scheme. And with this domestic scheme the primary job that people could come and it was women in particular was to be domestic sense for folks who may not be familiar with the term domestic. We hear about the nannies or live in caregivers that we use that term right now. So that was the primary job and one of the things that is really important in this story in a particularly individual in this country. Jean Augustine, Jean Augustine was from Grenada. Again another Caribbean Island British West Indian island. And she came up here highly educated but because of anti black racism in this country we're looking at 1950s early 1960s they said you know these qualities you're not welcome here and the only way that you can come here is to fit into this domestic scheme is to come here for a period of indentured labour no matter if you're a doctor or lawyer teacher university educated doesn't matter. That's the only avenue for you to come into this country. And you saw particularly for men we call them we say the term farm workers is really seasonal agriculture workers would come to work and we see this to this day, 2019. Yeah. You drive down Niagara you drive down on the 401. Pass London you still see it. This is still happening to this day and this is something that's been going on for decades in this country.

Falen: So things shifted and obviously changed in terms of immigration. But it sounds like in some respects it hasn't.

Leah: Yeah you're right. There's still a very robust program for migrant workers from the Caribbean. And while it provides some with a way to get here and to stay here many still can't. Large groups of West Indians pick our grapes and our tomatoes and our produce some for decades without any chance at citizenship.

Falen: And in a way it all comes back to Labor cheap expendable labor. In 2017 CBC asked Gabriel Allahdua a temporary foreign worker from St. Lucia to share how his idea of Canada has changed since coming here for work.

Gabriel Allahdua: I made a list of things that stand between my high expectations of Canada and reality for me here. I call it the twenty dark sides of Canada. For one I face working conditions I thought only existed in history. I never once thought that Canada a land that prides itself on freedom diversity and human rights would treat us like workers in the 18th century.

Falen: That's. Brutal.

Leah: It's really sad.

Falen: And I mean gives you insight into you because I think in a lot of ways it's this unseen, thing.

Leah: Well it's also the story. It's like you know a lot of this podcast is about the story that we've told ourselves as Canadians.

Falen: Yeah

Leah: And it's also the story that we tell to the world, right. So if you read this article and we will link to this article you see when he's talking about Canada what he what he thought Canada would be for him and what it actually was was a a huge shock to his system. But you know I try to keep the hope that there more Donald Moore's out there and that we can be more mindful and active and organize. I think of what Zanana Akande a former NDP minister said of him and how it still applies today. "Donald was right in thinking that we deserve citizenship because the country could profit from our being here and our children and their children would build Canada into something it never quite was without us."

Falen: The Secret Life of Canada is recorded in Toronto on the traditional lands of the Haudenosaunee, Wendat, and most recently The Mississauga's of the credit.

Leah: It's written and hosted by me Leah-Simone Bowen.

Falen: And me, Falen Johnson and produced by Katie Jensen.

Leah: Our script editor is Yvette Nolan.

Falen: Research assistance is provided by John Weier.

Leah: The folks from CBC archives and the CBC image research library.

Falen: Our digital producer is Fabiola Carlatti.

Leah: The senior producer of CBC podcasts is Tanya Springer and the executive producer is Arif Noorani.

Falen: Special thank you to all the people who wrote into us to tell us about their immigration experience.

Leah: Thank you so much. Come hang out with us and our Facebook group you can chat with us about the episode or check out other cool history related posts and tell us what you think.

Falen: We're also on Instagram and Twitter at Secret Life of C.A.D.

Leah: There's a story you want to hear in an episode or a piece of history you want to tell us about. E-mail us. SecretLifeofCanada@CBC.ca

Falen: If you liked what you heard or even if you didn't please write us a review on iTunes it really helps other people find us.

Leah: That's right. And for an upcoming episode we want to hear from you about your grandmothers. We're going to do a shout out to the grandmas and so if you have. A woman in your life who did amazing things in history or just cared for you and you love her. Send us a voice memo about your grandmother to Secret Life of Canada at CBC dot.

Falen: Thanks for exploring Canada's hidden history with us and remember pass it on.

Leah: Pass it on. If you liked this podcast check out uncover the village. For years' gay men were disappearing from Toronto's village. Police said they weren't connected but they were. It turns out that that was only the beginning of the story. Subscribe to Uncover the village wherever you get your podcasts.

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TRANSCRIPT: Secret Life of Canada - Season 2, EP 11: The Province of Jamaica

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