Accessibility

The Perth County Accessibility Program was created in line with provincial legislation called the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) that was enacted in 2005. Perth County and the Lower Tier Municipalities must meet the requirements of accessibility standards including:

• Customer Service
• Information and Communications
• Employment
• Transportation
• Design of Public Spaces

The County and Lower Tier Municipalities are also responsible for filing a bi-annual Accessibility Compliance Report with the Provincial Government. Members of the public may request a copy of the Perth County Accessibility Compliance Report via our Contact Us page.

Other legislative resources that guide our accessibility work:

• The Ontarians with Disabilities Act (ODA)
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0
• The Ontario Building Code 2012 – Ontario Regulation 332/12
• The Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation (under AODA)
• Municipal Accessibility Advisory Committees (Province of Ontario)
• Ontario Planning Act
• Ontario Human Rights Code
• The Blind Persons’ Rights Act

Additional resources regarding accessibility:

• GAATES Illustrated Technical Guide to the Accessibility Standard for the Design of Public Spaces
• AccessForward – Accessibility Training
• CNIB Foundation
• Accessibility in Ontario
• Age-Friendly and Accessibility Grants in Ontario
• Southwest Healthline Service Database

The County of Perth develops and maintains a number of documents related to accessibility across the County. These documents include annual updates, an accessibility plan, and corporate policies and procedures.

• Perth County Corporate Accessibility Policy
• Multi-Year Joint Accessibility Plan (2023-2027)
• Annual Accessibility Status Update (2023)
• Annual Accessibility Status Update (2024)
• Corporate Procurement Policy
• Accessibility Compliance Report (2024)
• Other HR training and Staff onboarding plans 

According to the Government of Ontario, the role of the AAC is “to provide advice to the municipal government on a wide range of municipal processes to help make public services and facilities accessible to everyone.”

The Perth County Joint Accessibility Advisory Committee (JAAC) is a resource for guiding decision-making throughout both the Upper and Lower Tier Municipalities. The Joint Accessibility Advisory Committee (JAAC) shall promote accessibility within the community to increase education and awareness. This aim shall be achieved through the review of municipal policies, programs and services and the identification, removal and prevention of barriers faced by persons with disabilities.

The JAAC is comprised of 9 members, with a majority of the members of the JAAC being persons with disabilities as prescribed in the Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2001. There shall be a minimum of one member from each of the Lower Tier Municipalities. The composition shall be: 7 volunteer citizens, 1 organization representative (Alzheimer Society), and 1 Council representative.

According to the Government of Ontario, the responsibilities of the JAAC are to:

1. Advise municipal Council about:
   • the requirements and implementation of accessibility standards
   • the preparation of accessibility reports
   • other matters for which the Council may seek its advice
2. Review site plans and drawings described in section 41 of the Planning Act.
3. Perform all other functions that are specified in the regulations.

The Perth County JAAC meets at 1:30 p.m. on the fourth Tuesday of each month. Please feel free to view the Committee agendas and minutes.

If you are interested in speaking to or joining the Perth County Joint Accessibility Advisory Committee, please contact contact Legislative Services.

Resources:

• JAAC Site Plan Review Checklist (PDF)

Age-Friendly Community Action Plan

In the fall of 2015, the County of Perth was awarded an Age-Friendly Community Planning Grant by the Government of Ontario, to develop a plan that will make Perth County more supportive to its senior residents as they age. See the below documents for more information.

• Perth County Age-Friendly Community Action Plan Summary
• Perth County Age-Friendly Community Action Plan Full Report

Age-Friendly Initiatives

Perth County is committed to committed to developing and implementing strategies that will support participation and healthy active lifestyles for older adults and all citizens in Perth County in keeping with the World Health Organizations' eight Age-Friendly Community Dimensions.

As part of this commitment, Perth County hosted 4 educational webinars for various members of the community in 2021. See below for more information and to view the recordings.

VIDEO: Alzheimer Educational Session for Public and Service-Providers. Learn more about dementia and age-friendly communities.

VIDEO: Age-Friendly Accessibility in Action Webinar for Businesses. Learn how to welcome everyone of all ages and abilities back to your business or office space with straightforward, low and no cost solutions that you can implement right now. Hosted by best-selling author and professional speaker, Julie Sawchuk (Founder of Sawchuk Accessible Solutions), this webinar is designed to help you rethink your business and customer service model.

#RespectTheSpace Campaign

Do you Respect Accessible Parking Spaces?

It is important to leave accessible parking spaces open for those who are legally entitled to use them. Please respect the space. Click the images below to open PDFs of each poster.

  

What are accessible parking permits?

Permits are issued by Service Ontario to either a driver or a passenger with a disability or health condition. When people use mobility devices such as wheelchairs or walkers, their disability is obvious. However, some health conditions are invisible. For example, people with heart or lung conditions. Permits are issued to people, not vehicles, so that people living with a disability can use the permit in any vehicle.

The province began issuing new accessible parking permits with enhanced security features in 2016. The features, which include machine-readable barcodes, raised markings and serial numbers, help to confirm that a permit is authentic. An Identification Number contains key information that describes the permit holder including first and last initials, gender and decade of birth. Permit abusers are easily identified.

As outlined in our Corporate Accessibility Policy, the County of Perth is committed to providing accessible customer service. Upon request, Staff can provide alternate formats of a document, or provide communication supports.

Website Accessibility

The County of Perth is committed to providing websites that are accessible and usable by everyone.

Perth County's website has been designed to be WCAG 2.0 level AA compliant and meets the Province of Ontario's Accessible Information and Communications Standard (Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005).

Exceptions

The County of Perth recognizes situations where it is not practicable to present content in an accessible format. In these cases, best efforts are used to provide an accessible alternative or assistance in acquiring the information needed. Everyone is encouraged to contact Perth County to receive information in an alternate format whenever required.

Examples of such exceptions include:

• Mapping or GIS data
• Engineering drawings or complex technical data

Standards For External Contributors

In order to maintain its accessibility standards, the County of Perth expects all content provided by external contributors to be compliant with the WCAG 2.0 Level AA standard pursuant to the Accessible Information and Communications Standard.

The County of Perth will accept no responsibility to convert non-accessible content provided by external contributors, train external contributors on accessibility or infer costs related to acquiring tools required to meet the requirement.

Non-compliance may result in refusal of content.

Example of external contributions

• Content to be posted on the County’s website.
• Agendas, minutes, reports, and correspondence from external boards and committees, as well as other municipalities, organizations and groups that supply content that forms part of County of Perth council and committee agendas

In instances where third-party content is included as part of the County’s agenda, the agenda may not conform with WCAG 2.0 AA. However, the agenda would conform to WCAG 2.0 AA if the content from uncontrollable third-party sources were removed.

When content received from uncontrollable third-parties is identified as being non-compliant that is to be included in other areas of the County’s website, a statement of partial conformance will be included with that content wherever practicable.