If your organization has 50 or more employees in Ontario and has a public-facing website, yes — you are required to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA web accessibility standards under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).

Most organizations don’t know whether they comply. And most find out they don’t at the worst possible time: a complaint, a failed procurement bid, or an enforcement order.

What AODA actually requires

AODA is Ontario legislation that requires organizations to progressively remove barriers to accessibility across five areas: customer service, employment, information and communications, transportation, and the built environment.

For website accessibility specifically, the relevant standard is WCAG 2.0 Level AA — the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium. The requirements are tiered by organization size:

What WCAG 2.0 Level AA actually means for your website

WCAG 2.0 Level AA is not a single checkbox. It covers dozens of specific requirements organized under four principles: that web content must be Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust.

In practice, the most common failures we find on Ottawa SMB websites include:

• Images missing descriptive alternative text, meaning screen reader users receive no information about visual content.

• Colour contrast ratios below 4.5:1 on body text or interactive elements, making content difficult or impossible to read for users with low vision.

• Forms that can’t be completed using only a keyboard, preventing access for users who can’t use a mouse.

• No ‘skip navigation’ link, forcing screen reader users to tab through every navigation item on every page.

• Error messages that don’t identify what went wrong or how to correct it.

• No accessibility statement on the website.

What happens if you don’t comply

Non-compliance doesn’t result in an automatic fine. The enforcement process begins with a Director’s Order, a formal notice requiring your organization to come into compliance within a specific timeline.

 If you fail to comply after a Director’s Order, fines can reach $100,000 per day for corporations and $50,000 per day for individuals. But the realistic cost for most organizations isn’t a fine, it’s emergency remediation under time pressure. A website that hasn’t been assessed may have dozens of compliance issues requiring coordinated fixes across design, code, and content. Doing that work under a compliance order, in weeks rather than months, is significantly more expensive than doing it proactively.

 There are also competitive and reputational consequences. Procurement responses in the public and not-for-profit sectors increasingly require accessibility compliance documentation. A failed bid because of missing AODA documentation is a direct commercial cost.

How to find out where you stand

The first step is a formal accessibility audit — not an automated scanner report, but a professional assessment that combines automated screening with the human judgment required to evaluate whether content is genuinely accessible, not just technically compliant.

Automated scanners catch approximately 57% of WCAG issues. The remaining 43% require evaluation that tools can’t perform: whether alternative text is actually descriptive, whether navigation flows make logical sense to a screen reader user, whether error messages genuinely help someone complete a form.

An audit gives you a documented baseline, a prioritized remediation list, and evidence of due diligence — all of which are valuable regardless of whether you’re ever challenged.