May 25th – 31st
This week is National Accessibility Week, which makes me want to highlight the Accessible Canada Act.
Let’s break this down by asking
What?
So what?
Now what?
Let’s begin.
What is this? Well, it is law that is made by the Canadian Government. This is the federal law. There are other Accessible Acts that are provincial. But since this week is National Accessible Week, I am going to start off with the federal Accessible Canada Act.
The goal is to help people with disabilities expereince more equity when accessing services from the government.
The federal act applies to federal government services and larger big private companies like Air Canada, or banks. Smaller businesses or provincial government businesses are under the Provincial Assessibilty Acts, like schools or community centers.
So what? You can file a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commissioner (which is federal). This is different from a Human Rights Complaint.
In December of 2024, The CHRC wrote an Accessibility Plan Progress Report
Accessibility Legislation was only assented in 2019. So we are still in the infancy of all of this. I mean, really….. this only came to be in 2019. I guess better late than never.
Now what? We need to use this!! Providing feedback to companies about their services and what barriers we are experiencing is an important way to advocate for changes which will help other people in the future. This is another way to use law to help us in our advocacy efforts and make our country more accessible.
Accessibility reports are expected to be published for the public to reach and feedback on accessibility should part of websites.
Most of us though will probably be providing feedback on a provincial level.
That is the Accessible BC Act.
Here is the plain language summary of the Accessible BC Act. LOTS of great information in here that is easy to digest. It talks about fines, and what will happen if organizations or services don’t do anything. How it will be regulated, etc. This info is also available in ASL.
So, woohoo!
Cheers, to another avenue, so we can be annoying to other people who don’t want to change! And maybe some who do…
Society is starting to be bend a little.
Every step matters. It all builds. Little by little. We need all of it.
AND
Each School District has an accessibility committee who reports to the Board of Education. They should all have a plan on how to address accessibility issues.
The more visible we are and the more we become part of the education, inclusion becomes more real.
#NationalAccessibilityWeek