Making a case for reform : Non-access to social security measures for migrant workers

What more can the government and other actors do to address the needs of temporary foreign workers in the future? [...] Yet, a re- cent response to the 2009 report of the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration on temporary and non-status workers, confirms that foreign workers have lately been laid-off due to the economic slowdown.2 Whatever the numbers are, increasing lay-offs for non-citizens, such as temporary foreign work- ers, are likely to rise in the coming year if economic conditions do not improv [...] At the federal level, both the New Democrats and the Liberals proposed a number of reforms over the summer that would ease the economic stress of unemployment for Canadians. [...] Temporary Foreign Workers’ Access to Social Security in Canada Temporary Foreign Workers’ Access to Social Security in Canada For the first year on record, TFWs entering Canada in 2008 outnumbered the number of skilled economic immigrants. [...] In this context, an important function of employment insurance is to strengthen the purchasing power of the unemployed worker tem- porarily and in so doing, to preserve their skills and abilities by allowing that worker to remain in the field for which they are qualified.