CBC/Radio-Canada last week released the first progress report on its 2023-2025 National Accessibility Plan, Breaking Barriers.
Launched in May 2023, the three-year plan provides a framework for the national public broadcaster to better serve and represent Canadians with disabilities, both as an employer and a content provider.
“We can be proud of the progress made since the launch of our National Accessibility Plan, but much work remains to be done,” said Catherine Tait, CBC/Radio-Canada president and CEO, in a Thursday press release.
“Between now and the end of the current plan in 2025, we will make sure our efforts are anchored in a long-term perspective. We are adopting the most promising practices across the organization and ensuring accessibility is everyone’s responsibility — an organizational reflex that is built into everything we do,” Tait said.
The progress report highlights actions CBC/Radio-Canada has taken to reach the objectives of its accessibility plan. In the area of employment, the broadcaster created a Workplace Accommodation Specialist role to implement key changes that will eliminate some of the barriers experienced by employees and job candidates with disabilities.
During the 2023-2024 fiscal year, which ended March 31, 11.5 per cent of new hires at CBC/Radio-Canada self-identified as a person with a disability, up from 6 per cent in the 2021-2022 fiscal year. Currently, 6.9 per cent of the public broadcaster’s overall workforce self-identify as having a disability, up from 4 per cent in 2021-2022.
CBC/Radio-Canada has also completed or started projects to improve the accessibility of many of its stations, most notably the Maison de Radio-Canada in Montreal, the Toronto Broadcast Centre, the Ottawa Broadcast Centre and the CBC Whitehorse station.
To help improve the accessibility of its technology and infrastructure, the public broadcaster created a new Software Accessibility Advisor role in its Technology & Infrastructure team, responsible for developing content related to information and communications technology (ICT) for its internal Accessibility Hub and collaborating on the procurement of accessible ICT. CBC/Radio-Canada also added an Accessibility Specialist role to its Supply Chain Management team.
CBC/Radio-Canada has standardized its practice of making all-staff virtual meetings accessible. In 2023-2024, 100 per cent of its virtual all-staff meetings were provided with closed captioning in real-time and transcriptions, and approximately 90 per cent of its corporate communications outputs provided closed captioning, according to its progress report.
On the programming side, CBC/Radio-Canada has increased and improved the representation of people with disabilities in its content. This includes new digital content promoting disability awareness for kids and youth on CBC and Radio-Canada platforms, such as CBC Kids’ videos for International Day of Persons with Disabilities and MAJ’s L’ABC Handicaps series.
CBC/Radio-Canada podcasts and audio content on themes related to disability are also available, including CBC’s Sickboy podcast and Radio-Canada’s podcasts Turbulences: traverser les troubles anxieux and Rares: la loterie génétique.
In addition, content is available with closed captioning on CBC Gem and ICI TOU.TV, and CBC and Radio-Canada are currently experimenting with text-to-speech functions, allowing people to listen to text-based news articles on their websites.
Artwork borrowed from CBC/Radio-Canada’s press release
