Canadians with disabilities have a Scarborough woman to thank for making it easier to access government websites.
Donna Jodhan launched her case against the federal government in 2006 and on Monday, Nov. 29, the Federal Court of Canada released its decision, ruling the government must fix inaccessible websites.Jodhan, who is legally blind, decided to take her frustration to the next level after multiple attempts to draw the government's attention to the fact its websites were difficult for blind and visually impaired people to access. "We have nothing to lose because we have nothing...When you think of the kids of the future I want to make sure they have the same ability to surf the internet the way a mainstream Canadian can," Jodhan said in an interview with Toronto Community News this week.And now they should be able to.Justice Michael Kelen declared Jodhan's inability to access certain government websites is representative of a system wide failure by government departments and agencies to make their websites accessible, and that the government's failure to monitor and ensure compliance with its own accessibility standards violates the equality guarantee in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He said the government has a constitutional obligation to bring itself into compliance with the Charter within a "reasonable time period, such as 15 months."Jodhan was understandably pleased with the decision and glad she didn't have to wait too long for it."I was delighted and humbled that the judge got it," she said. "That he saw this wasn't right."The government had initially attempted to have the case thrown out on technical grounds, but hearings eventually went forward in September. The government shouldn't look at the decision as defeat, Jodhan said, but rather as a wake up call and a learning experience. The changes Jodhan was looking for aren't difficult."It's not as costly as people would think. The tools are out there, the software is out there and the experts are out there...They don't have to look very far to find what they need," she said.Accessible websites obey simple authoring rules and include hidden tags that label information so that it can be properly organized by the screen readers, which blind web surfers use to convert text to new formats such as audible speech. Without these basic markers, screen readers garble the information on pages and forms, making them impossible to use.Jodhan has received a lot of positive comments for her decision to take this issue on, but she doesn't see the victory as her's alone. She said it is the community's victory.She was glad to do what she did to better the lives of those in the future, just as others fought so she could have the rights she enjoys."I'm standing here today because someone before me fought," she said, adding she was able to go to university and obtain her MBA (she is one of the first blind people to do so).While she is glad to go back to her normal life as a accessibility consultant and spending time with her family, she's not done standing up for what is right."There's always going to be something that needs to be done, that needs to be advocated for."