Everything You Need to Know About the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA) is Ontario's accessibility law. It sets out how accessibility standards are developed, implemented and enforced, and applies to government, businesses, non-profits and public sector organizations. The concrete duties sit in the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation (O. Reg. 191/11), and the Act remains in force today.

The web content rules cover designated public sector organizations and businesses or non-profits with 50 or more employees in Ontario: since January 1, 2021 their public websites and web content published after January 1, 2012 must conform to WCAG 2.0 Level A and Level AA. Smaller organizations still carry other AODA duties, such as a feedback process and providing information in accessible formats on request, and many of them reach Ontarians online regardless of size.

The regulation names WCAG 2.0 Level A and Level AA, published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), as the benchmark for websites and web content. Many teams also audit against WCAG 2.1 or 2.2, because those versions add criteria and are the reference in other laws — the AODA's own measure, however, remains WCAG 2.0 AA.

Public websites and web content published after January 1, 2012 had to reach WCAG 2.0 Level AA by January 1, 2021 for the organizations in scope. Reporting runs on its own schedule: businesses and non-profits with 20 or more employees file an accessibility compliance report every three years, with the current deadline of December 31, 2026, while designated public sector organizations file every two years and the 2025 report was due December 31, 2025.

Accessibility enforcement in Ontario allows inspections, director's orders that require specific corrective action, and administrative penalties; failing to file a required compliance report is itself a breach. In practice the heavier cost is usually a barrier that keeps customers away, plus complaints that reach the organization long before any regulator does.

Start with an automated scan of every page to surface issues such as missing text alternatives, low contrast, unlabeled form fields and keyboard traps, then verify the results with a keyboard and a screen reader. Automated checks cover a large share of problems quickly but not all of them — combining both gives you the complete picture of what to fix.

allyWay scans your pages against WCAG success criteria, shows what fails and where, and automates fixes for a large share of common issues such as contrast, labels, keyboard and ARIA problems — where human judgment is needed, like writing alt text or captioning a video, someone still has to make the call. What you get is faster remediation, ongoing monitoring and a documented record of findings, not a legal guarantee: meeting the AODA stays your organization's responsibility.

No. The AODA is provincial law and applies to organizations operating in Ontario. The Accessible Canada Act is federal and applies to federally regulated organizations and sectors across the country. Organizations that serve both provincial and federal customers can be subject to both, and the federal law runs its own reporting regime.