AODA Compliance

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) is an Ontario provincial law, in force since 2005 and overseen by the Government of Ontario. It applies to organizations with at least one employee in Ontario; its website rules (WCAG 2.0 AA) cover the public sector and businesses and non-profits with 50 or more employees, and organizations with 20 or more employees must file compliance reports.

No. These are two separate, real Canadian laws. AODA is a provincial law for organizations in Ontario. The Accessible Canada Act (ACA) is a federal law (Bill C-81, 2019) for the federal government and federally regulated industries (banks, telecoms, interprovincial transportation and broadcasting) across Canada; those organizations fall under the ACA rather than AODA. The ACA requires accessibility plans, feedback processes and progress reports; its ICT standard, CAN/ASC-EN 301 549:2024 (WCAG 2.1 AA), is published by Accessibility Standards Canada but is not yet mandatory by regulation.

AODA's technical standard for websites is WCAG 2.0 Level AA (Ontario Regulation 191/11). Meeting WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 AA also meets it, since both include every 2.0 AA criterion.

AODA covers organizations with at least one employee in Ontario, with requirements that grow with size: the website rules apply to the public sector and to businesses and non-profits with 50 or more employees, and compliance reports are due from those with 20 or more. Federally regulated organizations fall under the federal Accessible Canada Act instead.

On conviction, a corporation can be fined up to $100,000 for each day an offence continues (AODA s. 37). Organizations with 20 or more employees must also file compliance reports.