Accessibility

Ontario has laws to improve accessibility for people with disabilities, and one of the most important pieces of Legislation is the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. The purpose of this Act is to make Ontario a better place to live by creating a society that is equal. The Act not only sets long-term goals for both the Private and Public Sectors to make Ontario barrier-free by the year 2025, but also sets short and medium goals to ensure steady progress is made.

The Municipality of Bluewater must meet the requirements of accessibility standards including:

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

As part of the implementation of a multi-year accessibility plan, we are required to file Accessibility Compliance Reports with the Provincial Government. These reports are available by contacting the Corporate Services department. Alternate formats are available upon request.

The Municipality of Bluewater is a member of the Huron County Accessibility Advisory Committee and the Huron County Accessibility Advisory Committee Working Group.  In collaboration with the below municipalities the Huron County's Accessibility Plan has been developed and adopted.

• The Municipality of South Huron
• County of Huron
• Township of Ashfield-Colborne-Wawanosh
• Municipality of Bluewater
• Municipality of Central Huron
• Town of Goderich
• Township of Howick
• Municipality of Huron East
• Municipality of Morris-Turnberry
• Township of North Huron

The Municipality of Bluewater is dedicated to ensuring that our website, and its content, meets the requirements set out under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

The launch of our current website was an important step toward meeting the requirements of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, 2005.  The Municipality of Bluewater is making every effort to ensure that all internal tools are accessible and is working with third-party vendors to make them aware of the provincial requirements. To ensure our website and content are accessible, we conduct regular checks on the web pages and receive training on how to create accessible digital documents.

We are striving to provide a municipal website that is designed to respond to the needs of an accessible community, and includes the following guidelines:

• well structured content
• use plain English (except for specific words that don’t have an alternative)
• use short sentences
• explain acronyms
• whenever possible, documents (PDF, Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint) will be posted in accessible form
• write good link text
• make images and videos accessible
• ensure new features work on assistive technologies

However, we know that some aspects of this website are not fully accessible and we are continuing to work on resolving them.

The Municipality of Bluewater recognizes situations where it is not practicable to present content in an accessible format. In these cases, best efforts are being used to provide citizens an accessible alternative or assistance in acquiring the information needed.

Specific aspects of this website are non-complaint with the WCAG 2.1 AA standard, as shown in the list below:

• Mapping or GIS data
• Engineering drawings or complex technical data
• Legacy applications or data that cannot be updated or cannot be updated with reasonable effort/expenses
• Vendor web applications where the Municipality was unable to negotiate contractual obligation to maintain accessibility
• Presentation content where rendering accessible would hinder the ability to achieve its intended purpose
• Content that cannot be rendered accessible without significant impact
• Excel documents ie. financial information
• Content to be posted created by third party sources (for example, agendas and minutes from outside boards reporting to Council)
• External contributors may provide content which does not comply with web accessibility standards. Converting such document to an accessible format is deemed non-practicable

If you would like to provide feedback about the accessibility of services through the Municipality of Bluewater, please complete our accessible customer service feedback form. 

Feedback may also be provided by contacting the Corporate Services department by phone or email.