As of January 1, 2013 obligated organizations in Ontario have compliance requirements to meet in the Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation (IASR) under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005 (AODA).
Your obligations depend on whether you are:
1. Ontario Government and Legislative Assembly
2. Public organizations with 50+ employees
3. Public organizations with 1-49 employees
4. Private and non-profit organizations with 50+ employees
5. Private and non-profit organizations with 1-49 employees
By using the AODA Compliance Wizard your organization can isolate exact obligations.
An example is for organizations with 50+ employees, the wizard states your obligations are:
General requirements:
. Accessibility policies
. Multi-year accessibility plans
. Procuring or acquiring goods, services
. Self-service kiosks
Information and Communication Standard:
. Educational and training resources and materials, etc. (if you are an educational or training institution)
. Training to educators (if you are an educational or training institution)
Transportation Standard (if applicable to your organization)
. Multi-year accessibility plans, conventional transportation services
. Multi-year accessibility plans, specialized transportation services
. Alternative accessible method of transportation
. Fares
. Service disruptions
. Conventional transportation service providers, Technical Requirements
. Accessibility, rail cars
. Fare parity
. Visitors
. Co-ordinated service
. Hours of service
. Service delays
. Duties of municipalities, general
. Duties of municipalities, accessible taxicabs
Most due dates for compliance are January 1, 2013. If you have not visited the compliance wizard, please do and it will provide you with your own schedule. The wizard also provides a list of past and future obligations. Using the wizard is anonymous, meaning no records are kept about your organization. Just answer basic questions about your operations and the list of obligations appears. The compliance wizard is a useful program!