Ontario Companies - Are You AODA Compliant? New Regulations Came Into Effect Jan. 1 and ILScorp Can Help

Is your Ontario business ready to comply with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) regulations that came into effect on Jan. 1, 2014? The AODA has been around for a while, but the end of 2013 marked the deadline for a number of reporting requirements.

As an overview, certain employers need to ensure that they have done the following:

Public sector employers with 20 or more employees were to file a compliance report with the Ontario government by Dec. 31, 2013, confirming that they are currently compliant with the Accessibility Standards for Customer Service. The filing can be done online.
By Jan. 1, 2014, those same employers were also required also develop policies governing how they will meet their requirements under the Integrated Accessibility Standards. In addition, a multi-year accessibility plan must be developed, posted on the organizations’ websites, and provided in an accessible format upon request.
For employers with 50 or more employees in Ontario that are launching a new website or undertaking a significant website refresh after January 1, 2014, the website is required to conform to the World Wide Web Consortium Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Level A unless an exception applies or the company can demonstrate that meeting the guidelines is not practical.

Recent Freedom of Information Act requests have demonstrated that about 70% of Ontario private sector employers with 20 or more employees have not yet complied with required self-reporting requirements to demonstrate that they are compliant with the AODA. Perhaps more importantly, most private sector employers with 20 or more employees don’t even realize that they have certain obligations under the AODA as of January 1, 2014.

Because most Ontario businesses are not compliant with the AODA, the Ontario government has begun issuing notices of non-compliance and has indicated that it intends to pursue businesses which are non-responsive.

For further information, see the Ontario government’s website on AODA requirements.

Is your company AODA compliant? Compliance includes training all employees on AODA standards. Failure to comply can result in fines of up to $100,000.

ILScorp offers an Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) online course. You can register online, complete the AODA compliance training program entirely online, for a one-time fee of just $30 per person and print your certificate of completion immediately. Electronic records are kept by ILScorp in case of an audit, plus the ILScorp AODA course has been accredited from RIBO for one hour in the Management Category.

The course material has been taken directly from a variety of Government publications (with minor editing for clarity) on the subject of the AODA, including those of the Queen’s Printer for Ontario, and has been gathered here for the express purpose of providing training for the public on the AODA laws in effect.

Information excerpted from an article by Catherine Coulter, Dentons.