One of the more disruptive features of the emerging digital economy is the rise of virtual workers. Online work platforms (e.g. http://freelancer.com) enable individual workers to advertise their skills and find short-term contracts with employers all over the world – creating a global digital marketplace for labour. An estimated 48 million workers were registered on online work platforms globally in 2013.1 The market is estimated to be growing at 33% annually, with the number of workers expected to reach 112 million and market revenue to hit US$ 4.8 billion in 2015.2 The advent of virtual work could profoundly reshape the nature of work in Canada, transforming how, when, where and what type of work is done. This in turn could challenge the underpinnings of Canadian social policy and programs such as employment insurance (EI) and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).