Canada has promoted inclusivity and accessibility for years. Their goal is to make sure that citizens with disabilities aren’t treated any differently than those who don’t have any. Over the past few decades, Canada has implemented numerous laws and policies that focus on making buildings, public spaces, and services more accessible.

A law that Canada recently enforced is the Accessible Canada Act (ACA), which went into effect in 2019. The purpose of the ACA is to help Canada become barrier-free by 2040. The legislation focuses on removing and preventing accessibility issues in seven areas, which include everything from employment and communication to the procurement of goods. The ACA also details the importance of web accessibility.

Web accessibility is a crucial aspect of promoting inclusivity. Today, websites should be accessible to all users, which include people with disabilities. By improving the accessibility of a website, every citizen in Canada will have equal access to online content. When designing a website with a focus on accessibility, make sure you consider cognitive, sensory, intellectual, and physical disabilities. This article explores how ACA compliance follows what WCAG standard.

What Is the ACA?

The Accessible Canada Act (ACA) requires any federally regulated entities throughout Canada to make sure that their workplaces and services are accessible. This law applies to Crown corporations, private sector companies under federal jurisdiction, and government agencies.

The purpose of the ACA is to ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and has the same opportunity to participate in society. Today, there are more than six million people with disabilities living in Canada.

The History of the ACA

For years, disability activists sought additional protections from the Canadian government. In July 2019, the ACA was adopted after months of surveys were conducted and analyzed about what type of law would benefit Canadian society the most.

Canada has an “Accessible by 2040” initiative that they’re attempting to meet. The purpose of this initiative is to make every facility in Canada open to people with disabilities by 2040. The ACA allows Canada to take the next step necessary to reach that goal.

Who Must Comply with the ACA?

The ACA is a law that applies federally, which means that it covers nearly every geographic area of Canada. The types of businesses and industries that must adhere to the ACA include the following:

• Government organizations, which include the Canadian Armed Forces, parliament, police, and federal government agencies
• Federally regulated sectors, such as banking, telecommunications, and transportation
• Crown corporations that are nationally owned while still retaining private administration and management

The ACA has significant implications for technological platforms, including websites. It states that the new law applies to any medium that’s based on communication or information. If a website is connected to one of the industries listed above, it must comply with the ACA.

Compliance and Enforcement Mechanisms

Canada wants every federal business to adhere to the ACA, which is why there are serious consequences for ones that don’t. The government has created several positions to manage and oversee compliance.

For example, the Accessibility Commissioner is responsible for inspecting and auditing websites to determine if they are complying with the ACA. The Commissioner can apply penalties and fines to any website that doesn’t comply. Accessibility Commissioners are members of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, which gives them potent enforcement powers. They must perform the following tasks:

• Audit companies that are suspected of various violations
• Inspect groups to measure compliance
• Receive accusations of violations
• Create notices of violation and compliance orders
• Post monetary penalties for companies that don’t comply

Consequences of Non-Compliance

If a company doesn’t adhere to the ACA, it could receive a fine of up to $250,000. This fine applies to each infraction. The final amount depends on whether the violation was minor, serious, or very serious. Keep in mind that a specific process for investigating violations and charging them has yet to be made. Currently, complaints bodies and regulators must create mechanisms for referring complaints about accessibility.

Understanding WCAG Standards

Along with the ACA, digital accessibility is also governed by WCAG, which stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. These guidelines provide website owners with requirements for making sure that the digital content they create is accessible to all Canadian citizens, including those with disabilities. The types of accessibility issues that are covered by these guidelines include everything from alternative text for images to keyboard accessibility and color contrast.

The current WCAG guidelines are at the 2.1 level, which is an update to the 2.0 version that offers additional guidelines to manage accessibility issues with mobile devices. There are three levels of conformance when it comes to WCAG guidelines, which include A, AA, and AAA.

Level A criteria include a list of things you need to do to ensure a basic amount of accessibility on your site. It should be easy to reach level A compliance without significantly altering the design or function of your website.

Level AA criteria are more complex and include the things your development team can do to adhere to industry-accepted accessibility standards. This is the level that the Canadian government wants most websites to reach when making their content accessible.

Level AAA provides additional benchmarks that can help websites provide enhanced accessibility. A website can only obtain this rating if it complies with all criteria.

While level A lists 78 criteria, the AAA level provides more than 1,000 technical checks that websites must perform to comply. You can comply with all ACA guidelines by making sure your website reaches WCAG level AA.

Required Actions for Compliance

The ACA doesn’t include many specific rules for accessibility standards. It was originally designed to allow CASDO to create the next stage of regulations and standards. For now, the law requires all federally regulated companies to submit reports on the accessibility standards they have implemented.

Companies are tasked with submitting accessibility plans and progress reports. Accessibility plans are published with the help of people with disabilities. These reports describe the strategies the company is using to enhance accessibility and adhere to industry-wide standards. When a company publishes these plans, they must be made available to the public.

Progress reports are documents that describe how a company is implementing its accessibility plan. The ACA still needs to create a timeline for how often these reports should be published. It’s believed that future updates to ACA regulations will align with WCAG standards.

Best Practices for Accessible Website Design

When creating a more accessible website, keep the following design principles in mind:

• Perceivable: Website features and content should be easy to comprehend
• Operable: Your website must be able to function with different types of assistive technologies
• Understandable: The content on your website must be easy to understand and predictable
• Robust: Websites should be accessible from various browsers and devices

Common Accessibility Features to Implement

There are numerous accessibility features that you should try to implement on your website. For example, color contrast is a crucial feature. When you use color, you must maintain the right contrast between the foreground color and the background color. If the color contrast isn’t distinct enough, it will be difficult for users with visual disabilities to read the content. Maintain a color contrast ratio of 4.5:1.

It’s also a good idea to implement keyboard navigation, which will allow the users who visit your website to navigate pages by only using the buttons on their keyboards.

When designing your website, make sure you include captioning for all multimedia. Captions serve as subtitles for individuals who are deaf or have difficulty hearing. They must be synchronized with the audio in the videos on your website.

As for alternative text, it’s content that should be affixed to the images on your site. This text is descriptive enough to convey what an image means. People with vision disabilities can read this text if they’re having difficulty seeing an image.

Tools for Assessing Website Accessibility

Designing a website with accessibility in mind can take a long time if you aren’t familiar with ACA guidelines. You can, however, speed this process up by using accessibility audit tools like accessScan and UserWay. These are automated solutions that scan your website and provide you with comprehensive reports that identify all existing accessibility issues that must be addressed.

Some of these tools, such as accessScan, will automatically implement fixes to most of the accessibility issues they identify. You can use accessibility solutions to perform continuous monitoring on your website as well. It’s highly recommended that you regularly run audits and compliance checks on your website to ensure you haven’t introduced any new accessibility issues.

Conclusion

Whether you’re designing a new website or updating an existing one, it’s important that you consider WCAG standards and ACA compliance. If your company is a federally regulated entity, your website must meet the current ACA guidelines. If you fail to comply with these rules, you can be fined as much as $250,000 for each infraction.

By making your website more accessible and inclusive to people with disabilities, you may bring in more site visitors. Prioritize web accessibility in your design and development processes to provide your audience with a modern website.