Accessibility compliance guides · Canada

The Accessible British Columbia Act and your website

British Columbia’s accessibility law does not yet impose a province-wide WCAG clause. It does require public sector organizations to plan, consult, and take feedback — and the enforcement machinery for standards is already written.

In force: Act in 2021; regulation for prescribed organizations from September 1, 2022
Today’s duty: Accessibility committee, plan, and public feedback tool
Coming penalties: Up to $250,000 once compliance and enforcement provisions are in force

What it is

The Accessible British Columbia Act received Royal Assent in June 2021. Unlike Ontario’s AODA or Manitoba’s information and communication standard, it does not yet name WCAG as a binding website rule. The Accessible B.C. Regulation, in force September 1, 2022, prescribes more than 750 public sector organizations that must have an accessibility committee, an accessibility plan, and a public feedback mechanism.

The Act allows the province to adopt accessibility standards, including for information and communications. Draft standards have been out for consultation. When the compliance and enforcement part of the Act is brought into force, penalties can reach $250,000, including daily penalties for continuing contraventions.

Waiting for that standard is a weak plan. The B.C. Human Rights Code already prohibits discrimination in services customarily available to the public. Federally regulated organizations in B.C. already answer to the Accessible Canada Act. And every Canadian jurisdiction that has adopted a web standard has chosen WCAG AA.

Who needs to comply

The regulation lists public sector bodies. Businesses are not off the hook.

Prescribed public sector organizations. Provincial government, Crown corporations, local governments, school districts, health authorities, public libraries, and post-secondary institutions — more than 750 organizations.
Businesses serving the public. No B.C. web standard yet, but the Human Rights Code can apply to an inaccessible digital service today.
Anyone selling outside B.C.. Manitoba, Ontario, the ADA, and the European Accessibility Act follow the customer, not the office address.

Timeline

The organizational duties are current. The technical standard is the next step.

June 2021. Accessible British Columbia Act receives Royal Assent.
September 1, 2022. Regulation requires prescribed organizations to establish a committee, publish a plan, and offer a feedback tool.
At least every three years. Accessibility plans are reviewed and updated.
When standards and Part 5 are in force. Information and communication standards can become enforceable, with penalties up to $250,000.

What the rule requires

Make the duties you already have accessible, and build to the standard B.C. is likely to adopt.

Committee, plan, and feedback. The committee includes people with disabilities. The plan identifies, removes, and prevents barriers. The feedback tool has to be usable — an inaccessible feedback form misses the point.
WCAG 2.1 AA as the working target. It is the de facto Canadian benchmark (Manitoba, the federal EN 301 549 standard) and the likely basis of a future B.C. web standard.
Procurement. Third-party tools become your barrier. Ask vendors for WCAG conformance and an Accessibility Conformance Report.

How we help

We help B.C. organizations make the plan and the website match, before a standard arrives with a penalty attached.

An audit of the public site, the accessibility plan, and the feedback channel against WCAG 2.1 AA.
Findings you can put into the plan’s digital-barrier section, with fixes our developers carry out in the code.
Manual testing with NVDA, JAWS, and VoiceOver, plus keyboard-only use and browser zoom. The failures these rules care about are often invisible to an automated scan.
Remediation in your production code by our developers, so the fix lives in the product and not only in a report.
An accessibility statement and, where a buyer or regulator expects one, a VPAT-based Accessibility Conformance Report grounded in the audit.
Training for the people who publish pages, documents, and campaigns after the audit.
A retest after major releases, so a later deploy does not quietly undo the work.

Web accessibility audit and remediation

Our process

Confirm what applies to you. We confirm whether you are a prescribed organization, whether a plan and feedback tool already exist, and which other laws (federal, U.S., EU) also touch the same site.
Audit the live experience. We review the pages, flows, documents, and apps people actually use, with assistive technologies as well as automated checks, and map each finding to the standard this rule points to.
Fix the barriers that block access. Our developers remediate structure, keyboard access, forms, contrast, names, and media in your codebase, starting with the journeys that gate a service.
Document what was tested. You receive the findings, what we fixed, and the statement or conformance report your team, counsel, or procurement office needs on file.
Keep it from slipping. We train publishers and retest after significant releases so new content does not reopen the same gaps.

Longer background: Accessible British Columbia Act and web accessibility.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a WCAG deadline in B.C. today?

Not a province-wide one. Prescribed organizations must have a committee, a plan, and a feedback mechanism. The technical web standard is still being developed. The Human Rights Code can already apply to an inaccessible service.

Does our feedback form need to be accessible?

Yes. A form people with disabilities cannot use is not a feedback mechanism. We test it with a keyboard and screen readers along with the rest of the site.

We are a private company in Vancouver. Does the Act apply?

The current regulation targets prescribed public sector organizations. You should still treat WCAG 2.1 AA as the target, because human rights complaints do not wait for a standard, and customers in other provinces and countries bring their own laws with them.

What should we cite in the accessibility plan?

A current audit, the barriers you are removing, and a contact path. We write the findings so they can go into the plan without a second translation exercise.

Related guides

This page is general information from Peradeo Technologies Inc., not legal advice.

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