Cable Public Affairs Channel 2024-2027 Accessibility Plan

Table of Contents

Easy Read Summary

General

Areas Described under Section 5 of the ACA

Consultations

Conclusion

Appendix A

Easy Read Summary

The Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) has written an Easy Read Summary of our Accessibility Plan to be more accessible. This summary includes the main information about our Plan. The full, detailed version of our plan is available below.

CPAC's Accessibility Plan talks about seven different areas that are important to running our organization. These seven areas are outlined in the Accessible Canada Act (ACA). When working on our Accessibility Plan, we looked at:

  • The built environment
  • Information and communication technologies
  • Communication, other than information and communication technologies
  • The procurement of goods, services, and facilities
  • The design and delivery of programs and services
  • Transportation

To learn more about how to make these areas of our organization more accessible, we asked employees about accessibility at CPAC. We gathered this feedback using an online survey. We used the feedback and suggestions provided to help us make decisions about what to write in this Plan. We also worked with accessibility professionals to help us consider other barriers at CPAC. We then thought about how we could remove these barriers and came up with the following goals for our Accessibility Plan.

In the next 3 years we will:

  • Provide accessibility and disability awareness training to all our full-time employees including the management team.
  • Create a documented process for workplace accommodation requests.
  • Formalize our workplace accommodations policy.
  • Review our job postings through an accessibility lens and make new guidelines to use when writing new job postings.
  • Update our diversity policy to include temporary disabilities.
  • Update our emergency plans to include plans for visitors with disabilities.
  • Do an audit of our physical workspaces.
  • Put together a plan to improve the accessibility of our website.
  • Create guidance for our staff on how to make accessible social media posts.
  • Create an accessible events checklist and share it with employees who run events for CPAC.
  • Create an accessibility information page on our website.
  • Create minimum guidelines for including accessibility when we purchase items and services for CPAC.

Feedback

We are open to feedback on our plan and about accessibility at CPAC. You can give us your feedback by contacting:

Viewer Services Coordinator

General


Description of the Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC)

The Cable Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) is Canada's only independent not-for-profit, commercial-free, bilingual media organization focused entirely on politics and public affairs. On our broadcast television channel, website, digital app, and social media platforms, CPAC delivers programming that includes the complete televised proceedings of Canada's Parliament and in-depth coverage of key political events and public policy debates. CPAC's digital offering includes up to 14 simultaneous live streams and a video archive of over 60,000 hours of parliamentary and public affairs content. CPAC's employees work out of our head office in Ottawa, Ontario.


Statement of Commitment

CPAC has drafted an accessibility plan for persons with disabilities. This plan has been developed in accordance with the Accessible Canada Act. We recognize that accessibility is a practice that must evolve alongside our society, that disability is fluid, and that people with disabilities must be involved whenever we discuss practices and policies that directly impact them. We commit to proactively identifying barriers and working towards their removal. We also commit to addressing barriers when we become aware of them, even if they are not identified in our accessibility plan.


Contact Information & Feedback Process

We welcome feedback from our employees and members of the public about accessibility at CPAC and about this plan. People can submit their feedback anonymously, without giving their name or contact information. We will review the feedback and will consider it when we write our progress reports and our next Accessibility Plan. We will also take steps to address your feedback where possible.

The Viewer Services Coordinator is responsible for collecting, keeping, and responding to the feedback we receive.

You can contact us to provide your feedback in the following ways:

Viewer Services Coordinator

We also accept feedback through our social media channels.

This information on our feedback process is also available on our website: https://www.cpac.ca/accessibility-feedback

We will respond to let you know that we received your feedback, unless you submit the feedback anonymously (without a name or contact information). We will store a copy of all the feedback we receive for at least seven years.


Alternative Formats

You can request alternative formats of this plan and a description of our feedback process. To request this plan in an alternative format please contact:

Viewer Services Coordinator

We will also provide alternative formats of this accessibility plan, including print, large print, braille and audio, upon request, within 20 days.


Definitions

The following definitions apply throughout this plan:

  • Disability: Any impairment, or difference in physical, mental, intellectual, cognitive, learning, or communication ability. Disabilities can be permanent, temporary, and can change over time.
  • Barrier: Anything that might hinder people with disabilities' full and equal participation. Barriers can be architectural, technological, attitudinal, based on information or communications, or can be the result of a policy or procedure.
  • Accessibility: The design of products, devices, services, environments, technologies, policies and rules in a way that allows all people, including people with a variety of disabilities, to access them.

Areas Described under Section 5 of the ACA


The Design and Delivery of Programs and Services

CPAC's programs and services include content and programming that can be accessed on our TV channel or online. We continue to address barriers to the accessibility of our programming and have committed to a number of goals to remove them. These include:

  • By the end of 2024, CPAC will create a dedicated accessibility page on our website. This page will outline our accessibility practices and provide visitors with information about barriers outside of our control.
  • By the end of 2024, CPAC will have created a plan to conduct an accessibility audit of our website to identify barriers and plan for their removal.

Employment

CPAC has a small workforce consisting of fewer than 100 full-time employees. Our assessment identified several barriers to accessibility and to remove these barriers we commit to the following goals:

  • By the end of 2024, CPAC will have created a documented process for workplace accommodations requests.
  • By the end of 2024, CPAC will have reviewed its job postings through an accessibility lens and will devise a new set of guidelines to use when drafting new job postings.
  • By the end of 2024, CPAC will have updated its diversity policy to include temporary disabilities.
  • By the end of 2025, CPAC will have finalized a workplace accommodations policy.
  • By the end of 2026, CPAC will have all employees and management undergo accessibility and disability training.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

CPAC has a website, a digital app, and accounts on all major social media platforms. This section focuses on the accessibility of online platforms that CPAC controls.

The CPAC website, cpac.ca, was designed to be compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). However, in our consultations with people with disabilities, several barriers were identified. These included barriers related to website navigation, the tagging of content for screen readers, the availability of captions on legacy archival content, font sizes, and colour contrast across the website. We are committed to improving accessibility on our website and have set the following goal:

  • By the end of 2024, CPAC will have built a plan to audit the CPAC website for barriers to accessibility and compliance with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Communication, other than ICT

Our communications team continues to work towards addressing known barriers. We commit to maintaining accessibility best practices and applying them consistently to all our communications products. To support our communications team in improving accessibility we have further committed to the following goals:

  • By the end of 2024, CPAC will create accessible social media guidance that will be shared with all employees responsible for creating social media content.
  • By the end of 2024, CPAC will create an accessible events checklist and distribute it to employees responsible for planning and executing events.

The Built Environment

CPAC's head office is located in the World Exchange Plaza in downtown Ottawa, Ontario. The World Exchange Plaza has achieved Rick Hansen Foundation Accessibility Certification through to August 21, 2026. We are committed to reviewing the accessibility of CPAC's own built environment and spaces by committing to the following goals:

  • By the end of 2024, CPAC will have updated its emergency preparedness plans to include provisions for visitors with disabilities.
  • By the end of 2026, CPAC will have conducted a built environment audit of its office and studio spaces to identify barriers to accessibility and plan for their removal.

The Procurement of Goods, Services and Facilities

CPAC buys goods and services to support its operations. We commit to doing more to ensure that accessibility is addressed in the procurement process by setting the following goals:

  • Starting immediately, we will consider aspects of accessibility whenever we plan to purchase or acquire new goods, services, or facilities.
  • By September 2026, we will create guidance resources and checklists for how accessibility should be considered in procurement. Employees who participate in the procurement process will receive training on using these resources.

Transportation

CPAC does not directly provide transportation for employees or visitors. We have evaluated the transportation situation in and around the CPAC offices in downtown Ottawa. Our offices are located near multiple transit stops, including stops serviced by Para Transpo. Employees who face barriers with transportation can speak to HR about accommodations.

Consultations

This section outlines our consultation efforts with employees and members of the public with disabilities. We recognize that consultations need to be ongoing and based on a solid foundation of trust to be meaningful.

We consulted with employees with disabilities through an online survey in which all employees were invited to participate. In the survey we asked employees to share their experiences of barriers to accessibility at CPAC.

We also consulted with an external group of people from across Canada with a variety of disabilities. We asked them to watch CPAC on TV and on our website, and to review our social media accounts, website, and job postings. We received feedback about communication and navigation barriers experienced by the group's members while accessing livestreams and archived video on our website. We also received valuable feedback about the language used in our job postings and how it can be stigmatizing for potential applicants.

The feedback gathered from all these consultations heavily influenced the goals outlined in our plan. We are grateful to the employees and focus group members who took the time to complete these surveys and to participate in the consultation process.

Conclusion

Through this plan, CPAC is setting the tone for a renewed commitment to accessibility. We are committed to addressing and preventing barriers to accessibility for our employees and guests and for the public. We look forward to implementing these commitments and we will continue to engage meaningfully with people with disabilities as we develop future accessibility plans.

Appendix A

In preparing this Accessibility Plan, we have taken into account the principles set out in section 6 of the ACA.


(a) all persons must be treated with dignity regardless of their disabilities;

(b) all persons must have the same opportunity to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have regardless of their disabilities;

(c) all persons must have barrier-free access to full and equal participation in society, regardless of their disabilities;

(d) all persons must have meaningful options and be free to make their own choices, with support if they desire, regardless of their disabilities;

(e) laws, policies, programs, services and structures must take into account the disabilities of persons, the different ways that persons interact with their environments and the multiple and intersecting forms of marginalization and discrimination faced by persons;

(f) persons with disabilities must be involved in the development and design of laws, policies, programs, services and structures; and

(g) the development and revision of accessibility standards and the making of regulations must be done with the objective of achieving the highest level of accessibility for persons with disabilities.