Delivery Courier Tomas Vieira is concerned that the newest changes to the rules governing app-based delivery work are merely band-aid solutions to a much larger problem. Across Canada, tens of thousands of people now earn a living by carrying meals and parcels booked through a phone app, yet most are treated as self-employed contractors rather than employees. That label means they receive no paid sick days, no overtime, and no guarantee of the minimum wage once waiting time and fuel are counted. Vieira left a factory job to deliver food four years ago, drawn by the promise of flexible hours. "I was only too aware of how thin that freedom really is," Vieira says. "When the app goes quiet, you earn nothing, and there is no one to call."

Ministry Official Carla Desjardins says that although the system is far from perfect, her office is doing its best to improve it. "Recent measures, such as a guaranteed hourly floor for the time couriers spend on a trip and a new complaints line, have made a real difference," Desjardins says. One of the major changes requires the apps to tell drivers, before they accept a job, how much it will pay and how far it will take them. Even so, the protections apply only while a courier is actively on a delivery, and the long stretches spent waiting between orders remain unpaid.