'And When a Worker's Not Working?' Income Security (Welfare and Pensions) for Mobile Workers in Canada

Abstract

In this paper, we provide a basic overview of the welfare and pension income security options available to workers who are (or have been) on the move (OTM) in Canada. Workers on the move, for the purposes of this paper, include: (a) a Canadian or permanent resident worker who is working and living temporarily outside of their usual or current province of residence; (b) a Canadian or permanent resident worker who has recently worked and lived temporarily outside of their current province of residence; (c) a temporary foreign worker (TFW) who was employed under a valid work permit; (d) an undocumented worker who has worked without a valid work permit. We look at the legislative frameworks and the limited academic literature that address the eligibility for and practical access to income security benefits for such workers. This paper is divided into three parts: access to welfare benefits; access to public pensions (i.e. Old Age Security (OAS), Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) and the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans (CPP/QPP); and, finally, access to private pensions. In each section, we summarize eligibility issues for different categories of OTM workers in a table and, when appropriate, offer a breakdown of provincial-specific information for Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. Academic literature on this topic is nearly nonexistent, so our presentation and analysis remains rather technical. Overall, our conclusions are that, while immigration status makes TFWs and undocumented workers ineligible for some of these income security measures (a fact that may lead them into extreme financial hardship), the fact of a worker being “on the move” does not in and of itself seem to be a significant barrier to access. And while empirical research conducted by other members of the OTM team may uncover examples of mobile workers having difficulty accessing welfare or pensions in practice because of their mobile work trajectories or because of their lack of knowledge about their entitlement to these benefits, our research does not suggest that there are significant policy barriers related to being on the move.