Website accessibility for Nova Scotia businesses.

Nova Scotia's Accessibility Act and the 2030 goal

Nova Scotia passed its Accessibility Act in 2017. Its stated purpose is to prevent and remove barriers that disable people in several areas of life, including the delivery of goods and services, information and communication, employment, the built environment, education and public transportation. The Act sets out "a goal of achieving an accessible Nova Scotia by 2030."

The Act itself does not contain a list of website rules. It works by creating accessibility standards, one area at a time, which become regulations. The province's Accessibility Directorate describes six standard areas: built environment, education, employment, goods and services, information and communication, and transportation. Its plan, Access by Design 2030, says standards will apply first to the provincial government, then to public sector bodies, and then to other organizations, including the private sector.

Two details in the Act matter for a business owner. First, its definition of an organization includes a sole proprietorship, so size alone does not put a business outside its reach. Second, standards may apply to anyone who employs people or provides goods, services or information to the public, and may be set differently by number of employees or annual revenue. In other words, the Act leaves room to treat a five-person contractor differently from a large retailer, and the details will be in each standard.

What applies to private businesses today, and what does not

As of October 2026, here is where things stand, based on the province's own published timeline.

• Built environment standard: in force. It became law in 2025 and applies to new buildings and infrastructure, with its requirements built into design and planning from 1 April 2026. It covers things like parking, outdoor spaces and recreation facilities. It is about physical spaces, not websites.
• Information and communication standard: in development. This is the one that will cover websites and digital information. The Directorate's timeline shows public input in 2026 to 2027, recommendations in 2027, and the standard becoming regulation in 2028 or 2029.
• Goods and services, employment and education standards: in development, with each shown as becoming regulation in 2027.
• Public sector bodies prescribed under the Act, such as the provincial government, municipalities and universities, already have to keep an accessibility advisory committee and publish an accessibility plan, updated every three years.

So, for a private business in Nova Scotia today, there is no provincial regulation in force that sets a technical accessibility standard for your website. That is likely to change before the end of the decade, and the province has said the private sector is in the plan.

Two cautions. The Act states that it does not reduce the rights people with disabilities already have under the Human Rights Act, which is a separate law. And customers do not wait for regulations. A visitor who cannot use your booking form on a phone with a screen reader simply calls someone else.

The federal Accessible Canada Act, and who it covers

The Accessible Canada Act is federal law with a goal of a barrier-free Canada by 1 January 2040. It applies to organizations under federal jurisdiction: the Government of Canada and its departments and Crown corporations, Parliament, and federally regulated private businesses such as banks, interprovincial transportation, broadcasting and telecommunications. It does not apply to provincially regulated businesses.

For a Halifax plumber, a Truro restaurant or a Dartmouth physiotherapy clinic, that means the federal Act almost certainly does not apply. It matters if you are federally regulated, or if you sell to federal organizations that may start asking suppliers about accessibility.

Under the federal digital technology regulations, larger federally regulated organizations must meet the Canadian standard CAN/ASC-EN 301 549:2024 on a schedule that runs to December 2028. Federally regulated private sector organizations with 99 or fewer employees are exempt from those digital requirements.

WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 AA in plain terms

Whatever the Nova Scotia standard ends up saying, the reference point for website accessibility worldwide is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG, published by the W3C. Most laws and policies point to level AA, the middle of three levels.

WCAG is built around four ideas. A site should be perceivable, so that information is available to eyes, ears or a screen reader. It should be operable, so that everything works with a keyboard, a finger or a voice. It should be understandable, so that pages behave predictably and forms explain themselves. And it should be robust, so that assistive technology can read the code reliably.

WCAG 2.2 became a W3C Recommendation on 5 October 2023. It keeps nearly everything from 2.1, removes one outdated rule about code parsing, and adds nine new requirements. The ones at level A and AA that matter most for a small business site:

• Focus not hidden. When someone tabs through the page, the highlighted item must not be completely covered by a sticky header, cookie banner or chat widget.
• Target size. Buttons and links need to be at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, or spaced so a finger cannot hit the wrong one.
• Dragging alternatives. Anything that works by dragging, like a slider, needs a simple tap or click alternative.
• Consistent help. If you offer a phone number or chat on several pages, put it in the same place on each.
• Redundant entry. A multi-step form should not make people type the same information twice.
• Accessible login. Customer logins should not rely on a memory test or puzzle without help, such as letting people paste a password or use a password manager.

Because 2.2 builds on 2.1, a site that meets 2.2 AA also meets 2.1 AA. If you are starting fresh, aim for 2.2.

A practical checklist for a small business site

You do not need a consultant to make most of the difference. Work through this list on your own site, on a phone and on a laptop.

• Text contrast. Body text should be dark enough against its background to read in sunlight. Pale grey on white is the most common failure on small business sites.
• Image descriptions. Every meaningful image needs alt text that says what it shows. Decorative images should have empty alt text so screen readers skip them.
• Keyboard only. Put the mouse away and press Tab through the whole page. You should be able to reach and use every link, button and form field, and always see where you are.
• Headings in order. One main heading per page, then sections beneath it. Screen reader users navigate by headings the way sighted people skim.
• Link text that makes sense alone. "See our pricing" rather than "click here".
• Forms with real labels. Each field needs a visible label, and errors should say what went wrong and how to fix it, in words rather than colour alone.
• Tap targets. Phone numbers, menu buttons and form controls large enough to hit with a thumb.
• Zoom. Zoom the browser to 200 percent. Nothing should overlap or disappear.
• Video and audio. Captions on video, and a transcript for anything spoken that matters.
• Documents. PDFs of menus or price lists are often unreadable to screen readers. Put the same content on a normal web page.
• Motion. Avoid autoplaying carousels and respect the phone's reduce-motion setting.
• Language. Set the page language correctly, and mark French sections as French so screen readers pronounce them properly.

Most of these fixes also make a site faster and easier to use for everyone, which is why accessibility work overlaps so much with site optimization and with a technical SEO audit. Clear headings, labelled forms and readable text help search engines understand a page too. If a rebuild makes more sense than patching, accessibility can be built in from the start on a custom website.

Sources

Everything above is drawn from these public sources, checked on 2 October 2026.

• Accessibility Act, Statutes of Nova Scotia 2017, chapter 2, sections 2, 3, 4, 29 and 30.
• Access by Design 2030: Achieving an Accessible Nova Scotia, Government of Nova Scotia.
• Creating Accessibility Standards, Nova Scotia Accessibility Directorate.
• Accessibility Act Compliance, Government of Nova Scotia.
• Nova Scotia's First Accessibility Standard Addresses Outdoor Spaces, Recreation Buildings, news release, 17 March 2025.
• Summary of the Accessible Canada Act, Government of Canada.
• Guidance overview of regulatory amendments: Digital Technologies Phase 1, Government of Canada.
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2, W3C.
• What's New in WCAG 2.2, W3C Web Accessibility Initiative.