The 2026 Guide
Index

Accessibility

Accessibility means building a service everyone can use, including people with a disability, whether that disability is permanent, temporary, or situational. In Canada it is the law: the Accessible Canada Act sets a goal of a barrier-free Canada by 2040 and names information and communication technology as one of the areas that has to be made accessible. A service that cannot be used with a keyboard, a screen reader, captions, or clear language shuts people out of something government often makes the only option. The decisions that make a service accessible are taken early and revisited as it changes.

What good looks like

  • Accessibility is designed in from the start, while the design is still cheap to change.

  • The service meets the standard the law requires, CAN/ASC-EN 301 549, which for the web means WCAG 2.1 Level AA.

  • The standard covers digital documents and any mobile application, as well as the website.

  • Accessibility requirements are written into the contract when technology is bought, and the supplier provides an Accessibility Conformance Report, a standard statement of how accessible their product is.

  • The service is tested with real people, including people who use assistive technology. Automated tools find only some of the problems.

  • A published accessibility statement says what is and is not accessible, and how to get help or an alternative.

  • People who cannot use the service on their own can still get it done, by phone, in person, or with support.

  • Staff who build, maintain, or buy digital technology have accessibility training.

Why it matters

When a service is not accessible, people are shut out of things they have a right to use, a benefit, a tax filing, a health service, and there is often no other way to get them. It is also a legal duty: under the Accessible Canada Act and the Accessible Canada Regulations a federal digital service must meet the accessibility standard, with deadlines phased in across 2027 and 2028, and the Accessibility Commissioner can impose penalties. There is a gap in between, and it is easy to misread. The Treasury Board Standard on Web Accessibility was rescinded on 2 March 2026, so until the regulations bite there is no single Treasury Board standard in force. That is not a pause. The direction departments were given is that the rescission must not lead to reduced accessibility, deferred maintenance, or any slipping back. Keep meeting at least what the service already met, and name CAN/ASC-EN 301 549 in anything bought now, because a platform chosen today will still be running when the deadlines arrive. Building accessibility in early costs far less than fixing it under deadline, and an accessible service is easier for everyone, on a phone, on a slow connection, in bright sun. Most barriers are ordinary and avoidable: an image with no text alternative, a form that needs a mouse, contrast too low to read.

Whose job it is

Accessibility is shared across the team, with each role holding a different part:

  • Designers and content authors write in plain language, structure content properly, and design for keyboard and screen-reader use.
  • Developers build to the standard and fix what testing finds.
  • The department's accessibility or IT team advises, runs testing with assistive technology, and helps publish the accessibility statement.
  • The business owner of the application makes sure accessibility is planned and funded, is built to the standard before launch, and answers for meeting the legal requirements.

A closer look

Comparison

Two ways to do accessibility

Pax

Meet Pax, a program officer. They built accessibility into the grant portal from the first sketch:

  • designed for keyboard and screen-reader use, with EN 301 549 (WCAG 2.1 AA) as the bar
  • required an Accessibility Conformance Report from the supplier of the case-management tool, and checked it
  • tested with real people, including someone using a screen reader and someone navigating by keyboard, and fixed what they found before launch
  • published an accessibility statement saying what works and how to get an alternative

The result: the portal met the law, worked for everyone, and cost far less because the problems were caught early.

What Accessibility looks like in each phase

The accessibility work changes shape across the life of a service.

Accessibility is cheapest to build in at the start. The team designs for keyboard and screen-reader use, writes in plain language, and sets EN 301 549 (WCAG 2.1 AA for the web) as the bar the service is built to. If technology is bought, the accessibility requirements are written into the contract and the supplier's Accessibility Conformance Report is checked. Testing with people is planned now rather than left to the end. The work changes shape across Create's three sub-phases:

In Discovery, learn who gets excluded.

  • include people with visual, hearing, motor, or cognitive impairments in the research, and people with little digital access or confidence
  • learn where the current way of doing things shuts people out
  • nothing exists yet, so there is nothing to test

In Alpha, make the mock-ups accessible, and test them with the people most likely to be excluded.

  • check the designs against the accessibility principles
  • run the research sessions on the mock-ups with people with access needs
  • work out which clauses of the standard belong in the build contract

In Beta, prove it on the real service.

  • test with assistive technology, and with the people most likely to be excluded
  • fix what the testing finds before the public arrives
  • check the supplier's Accessibility Conformance Report against the contract

The official instruments behind accessibility

Everything official this subject brings with it, and where in a service's life each one comes up. The full detail, including who does the work and what the business owner personally does, is in the table on the home page.

  • Accessibility conformance report (ACR)Only ifsourceAssessment

    A supplier's written statement of how far their product meets the accessibility standard, clause by clause, with the gaps named. It is a claim to be tested, not a certificate.

    • AlphaGather
    • BetaSign or accept
    • MaturityKeep current
  • Accessibility conformance and the accessibility statementEvery servicesourceStanding duty

    Conformance of the service itself to the Canadian accessibility standard for information and communication technology, plus a published statement that names what does not conform, what the alternatives are, and when the gaps close.

    • AlphaGather
    • BetaFillSubmit
    • GrowthKeep current
    • MaturityKeep current
  • Official languages in what you buyOnly ifStanding duty

    The obligation to write official languages requirements into the contract, so a supplier is contractually bound to deliver both languages rather than being asked for French later as a change request.

    • AlphaGather
    • BetaSign or accept
    • MaturityKeep current
  • Publishing under the canada.ca brandOnly ifStanding duty

    The rules for anything the public sees: the domain, the global header and footer, the Government of Canada signature and wordmark, the mandatory page templates, the information architecture, and the content style guide. They are mandatory, and they constrain what a service can look like and where it can live.

    • AlphaCheckGather
    • BetaSubmitSign or accept
    • GrowthKeep current
    • MaturityKeep current
    • SunsetClose out
  • Mobile: responsive by default, native app by justificationOnly ifStanding duty

    The rule that a public-facing service works properly on a phone, and that building a downloadable app instead of a responsive web page has to be justified. A native app also adds a central publishing step the department does not control.

    • AlphaCheck
    • BetaFill
    • MaturityKeep current
    • SunsetSubmit

Further reading

The Accessible Canada Act, the Accessible Canada Regulations, CAN/ASC-EN 301 549, and the Digital Accessibility Toolkit are all in the Sources below. For why accessibility matters, the W3C Introduction to Web Accessibility is the plainest start, and other governments' guidance is worth a look, the UK Service Manual on assisted digital and the United States' Section 508 procurement resources. To see who sets the bar at home and what else is coming, Accessibility Standards Canada is the federal standards body, with the disability definition, the seven priority areas, and a free database of published and in-progress standards. When the team needs to know how to actually build an accessible page, the W3C WAI tutorials give worked guidance on images, forms, tables, and page structure, and WebAIM's keyboard accessibility guide shows how to check that everything works without a mouse.

See also

Assumptions this page makes

You are already working to the Government of Canada Digital Standards, design with users, iterate and improve frequently, work in the open, use open standards, address security and privacy, build in accessibility, empower staff, be good data stewards, design ethical services, and collaborate widely, and to the law on privacy, security, official languages, and accessibility. The standards say how the government works in the digital world. The six Government of Canada digital competencies say what every public servant has to be able to do to work that way, and the team page covers them. This guide builds on those.