Which Canadian provinces require an accessible website?

Manitoba is the strict one, and almost nobody knows it

The Accessible Information and Communication Standard reached private businesses and non-profits on 1 May 2025, and the threshold is one employee rather than Ontario's fifty. It asks for WCAG 2.1 Level AA on newly published web content and on any web content needed to reach the goods and services the business sells.

The practical result is that a five-person shop in Winnipeg carries a web accessibility obligation that the same shop in Toronto does not, and to a newer version of the standard. Almost every accessibility article written for a Canadian audience is about Ontario, which is why this keeps catching Manitoba owners out.

British Columbia and the provinces still drafting

The Accessible British Columbia Act has been in force since 2021 but currently reaches the provincial government and prescribed public sector organizations: municipalities, school districts, health authorities, post-secondary institutions, and municipal police departments. Those bodies build accessibility committees, plans, and feedback processes. The first standards, for employment and service delivery, are still being finalized, and none so far reaches private business.

Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Saskatchewan each have framework legislation with standards in progress. Nova Scotia's built environment standard is in force, and its information and communication standard is still being developed. Quebec has no private-sector web standard, and Alberta has no accessibility law at all. In none of those is there a WCAG requirement on an ordinary business today.

Federally regulated businesses answer to a different law

The Accessible Canada Act covers banks, telecommunications and broadcasting, airlines, rail, and road and marine carriers that cross provincial or national borders, along with the federal government itself. It requires a published accessibility plan, a feedback process, and progress reports on a set schedule, and those documents have to be published in a format that meets WCAG Level AA. Organizations averaging fewer than ten employees are exempt from all three.

The web pages themselves are next. Amendments to the Accessible Canada Regulations adopt the federal standard CAN/ASC-EN 301 549, which reflects WCAG 2.1, for new and updated web pages: from December 5, 2027 for the federal public sector, and from December 5, 2028 for many federally regulated businesses with 100 or more employees. Smaller federally regulated businesses are exempt.

What to build to, whichever province you are in

WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the sensible floor everywhere. It satisfies Manitoba, exceeds Ontario, matches the version behind the federal standard, and holds if the business hires across a border or a province updates its rules. Ontario's own review committee recommended moving to WCAG 2.1 in 2020, and the regulation still names 2.0.

It is also the version of the argument that does not depend on a regulator. Real contrast, keyboard access, labelled form fields, alt text, and captions are the same things that make a site usable on a phone in direct sunlight, by someone driving, or by a customer who is sixty-eight. The legal case is the smaller half of it.