GC Catalogue

Sample language

The Contractor’s proposed solution must fully conform with the Government of Canada’s Standard on Web Accessibility and the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) accessibility requirements. At contract award, the Contractor must provide an Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) based on the latest VPAT®, in an accessible format, for the proposed solution. The report must be completed by a third-party or by a qualified in-house ICT accessibility subject matter expert and needs to be assessed against the EN 301 549 (2021) Standard, or subsequent versions, which includes WCAG 2.1 AA.

If the proposed solution does not conform with the accessibility requirements, the Contractor must provide a detailed roadmap on how they will achieve full conformance in accordance with the approved Start-Up Phase Plan. The Contractor must be solely responsible for any upgrades, subcontracting or other work required to achieve conformance. The roadmap must include but is not limited to the following:

• identification of specific clauses from the EN 301 549 (2021) which do not conform;
• timelines to remediate accessibility issues identified;
• software upgrade options that would resolve accessibility issues;
• plans to subcontract accessibility audits and remediation; and
• plans and ability to internally audit and remediate accessibility.

Any ongoing revisions to the ACR based on the VPAT® and roadmap must be provided in an accessible format whenever the Contractor implements a significant software update or at a minimum annually, to show all changes made to the services and/or solutions for the ICT accessibility during that period. The revisions must be marked to show the changes made during the applicable period. If no changes have been made, the Contractor must advise the Contracting Authority in writing that the existing ACR is unchanged.

The Contractor must continuously review and improve the accessibility features throughout the duration of the contract and demonstrate the conformance through the submission of an accessibility conformance report (ACR) on an annual basis to ensure that they continue to meet the latest standards.