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Compliance · Canada

AODA and the Accessible Canada Act, for website teams

Canada regulates web accessibility at two levels. In Ontario, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) has required WCAG 2.0 Level AA of large organisations since 1 January 2021. Federally, the Accessible Canada Act covers the government and federally regulated businesses such as banks and telecoms, and a regulation adopted in December 2025 will make EN 301 549 mandatory for their websites. This page summarises both, and Manitoba's standard. It is not legal advice.

Ontario: who the AODA website rule covers

Section 14 of the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation (O. Reg. 191/11) applies to designated public sector organisations and to large organisations: 50 or more employees in Ontario, whether businesses or non-profits.

  • The standard is WCAG 2.0, the December 2008 W3C Recommendation, at Level AA, except 1.2.4 Captions (Live) and 1.2.5 Audio Description (Prerecorded).
  • The deadlines have passed: new websites and content had to meet WCAG 2.0 Level A by 1 January 2014, and all websites and content Level AA by 1 January 2021.
  • What it covers: public websites the organisation controls directly or through a contract, and web content published after 1 January 2012. Intranets and extranets are not required to meet WCAG, except those of the Government of Ontario and the Legislative Assembly.
  • The one exception is where meeting the requirement is "not practicable", judged by factors such as whether commercial software or tools are available (section 14(5) and (6)).

The regulation still names WCAG 2.0. A 2020 standards review recommended moving to the most recent version, such as WCAG 2.1, but that has not been adopted. Meeting WCAG 2.2 Level AA meets WCAG 2.0 Level AA too, with one gap: 4.1.1 Parsing, which 2.2 removed and AODA still includes.

Ontario: reports and penalties

Compliance reports. Businesses and non-profits with 20 or more employees in Ontario file an accessibility compliance report every three years. Ontario gives the next deadline as 31 December 2026. Designated public sector organisations report every two years.

Administrative penalties. A director under the AODA can order an organisation to pay a penalty (section 21), up to CAD 100,000 a day for a corporation and CAD 50,000 a day for an individual or unincorporated organisation (O. Reg. 191/11, section 83).

Offences. On conviction, the Act sets fines of up to CAD 100,000 for each day or part of a day for a corporation, and CAD 50,000 a day for others (section 37(3)).

Federal: the Accessible Canada Act

The Act (S.C. 2019, c. 10) aims for a Canada without barriers by 1 January 2040, including in information and communication technology. It covers federal departments, Crown corporations and businesses under federal jurisdiction: banks, telecommunications, broadcasting, and federally regulated transport.

  • Accessibility plans published and updated at least every three years (section 69), a feedback process (section 70), and progress reports in the years between (section 71). The plans themselves must be published in a format that meets WCAG Level AA.
  • Who files: the first plans were due by 2022 for government, 2023 for employers with 100 or more employees, and 2024 for 10 to 99. Entities averaging fewer than 10 employees are exempt (SOR/2021-241).
  • Penalties of up to CAD 250,000 per violation (section 91(2)), and each day a violation continues is a separate violation (section 88). The Accessibility Commissioner enforces most of the Act; the CRTC and the Canadian Transportation Agency enforce it for broadcasting, telecoms and transport.

The coming web rule. SOR/2025-255, registered on 5 December 2025, amends the regulations to require new or updated public web pages to meet clauses 4 to 7 and 9 of CAN/ASC - EN 301 549, the Canadian adoption of the European standard, which integrates WCAG 2.1 Level AA. It applies to federal public sector entities and to federally regulated private entities averaging 100 or more employees, but not to broadcasting, telecoms or transport. It also adds duties for mobile apps and a yearly accessibility statement. Most of it comes into force on 5 December 2027, the rest on 5 December 2028. The federal Standard on Web Accessibility for departments was rescinded in March 2026; until the new rule applies, departments keep their sites at WCAG 2.0 at a minimum.

Other provinces

Manitoba is the other province with a web standard in force. Its Accessible Information and Communication Standard Regulation (M.R. 47/2022), in force since 1 May 2022, requires web content to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA. It was phased in over three years, government departments first, and its last phase, from 1 May 2025, covers organisations outside the public sector.

What an automated scan can tell you

An AODA compliance report asks you to confirm that your site meets WCAG 2.0 Level AA. A scan cannot confirm that by itself: criteria such as caption accuracy or a meaningful focus order need a person. What it does is test, on every page and every scan, the criteria that can be measured, and list those it could not test instead of counting them as passes.

Accessibility Pro checks against WCAG 2.2 Level AA, which contains every WCAG 2.0 Level AA criterion except 4.1.1. Duplicate-ID findings under 4.1.1 still appear in the report, marked as advisory, so they can be checked if your policy still requires it. See the WCAG 2.2 checklist and the compliance reporting overview

Sources

Checked on 2026-09-29. The SOR/2025-255 duties were not yet in force on that date. This page is a summary, not legal advice.