Accessibility Plan progress report - Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada

2023 Accessibility Plan progress report

Action Steps Revised timeline Update
Employment
Barrier identification Review current hiring policies and procedures. June 2024

The Public Service Resourcing System is mandated for job postings, presenting challenges due to unmodifiable text and formatting.

Training on "plain language" usage is crucial for hiring managers and human resources advisors to enhance inclusivity in job advertisements.

Ongoing support from human resources staffing ensures inclusive language and processes. Public Service Employment Act 36(2) compliance training was provided in July 2023.

Continuous efforts are made to gather best practices from Government of Canada staffing networks and community.

Identify mitigation strategies Make changes to policies and procedures. October 2024 Planning a workshop in 2024 involving employees with disabilities to gather insights on best practices.
Provide training to HR staff on accessibility Provide training. October 2024 Scheduled accessibility training for October 2024 and Unconscious Bias training for January and February 2024.
Built environment
Ensure program of work rehabilitation includes all accessibility measures Participate in the creation of requirement. June 2025 Public Service and Procurement Canada is committed to meeting the latest accessibility standards in facility renovations.
Identify mitigation strategies Ensure ongoing mitigation measures are adequate and periodically reviewed. Ongoing A comprehensive plan to address accessibility gaps with consideration for short-term and long-term initiatives was prepared.
Ensure rehabilitation plans consider all accessibility requirements and needs Review rehabilitation plans and documents as they become available. Ongoing until completion of building rehab Inclusion of people with disabilities in the revision of plans is a priority and will take place at key milestones within the project.
Information and communication technologies (ICT)
Ensure that applications developed in-house (including the Supreme Court of Canada Website) are accessible and usable Leverage accessibility and usability standards (e.g. Web Experience Toolkit) for all development activities. Ongoing

Prepared a checklist for the new website to meet Web Accessibility Standards.

Continued use of the checklist post-launch.

Plan to convert inaccessible PDFs to HTML format.

Provide users with assistive technologies as and when required When a need for assistive technology is identified (e.g. text-to-speech, dictation, closed captioning, high contrast, and alternate input devices) research must be conducted and steps must be taken to acquire the required technology. Ongoing

Proposed comprehensive training for IT staff, developers, and support teams on accessibility practices.

Targeting Summer 2024 for the training.

Communication, other than ICT
We plan to target our consultations this year to persons with disabilities, to benefit from feedback on all of our accessibility tools. The Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada is updating its Accessibility Plan and in doing so has broadened consultations with persons with disabilities to identify barriers. An updated plan will be implemented in 2024 and will include the result of these consultations as they apply to Communications. June 2024

Consultations have taken place; a draft plan has been completed and internal consultations are ongoing.

Some recommendations stemming from consultations are being implemented pre-plan.

Procurement
Accessibility training provided to procurement officers to increase awareness of accessibility standards and potential barriers in the procurement process This will form part of our overall training strategy.  December 2023

Training on Addressing Disability Inclusion and Barriers to Accessibility for procurement officers has been completed.

Considering additional training courses for a broader understanding of accessibility.

Extending training beyond procurement staff to include all project authorities involved in procurement for Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Training
We will create an overarching organizational training plan for accessibility that will be provided internally to staff members. 

Creation of a training plan.

Roll out of training to all staff.

October 2025

January 2026

Development of an overarching organizational training plan in underway.

Rollout of training to all staff planned for 2026.