Accessibility Plan 2023-2026

APTN’s Accessibility Plan, Feedback Process and Alternative Format Requests

Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) is pleased to publish its first Accessibility Plan. We are committed to the principles of the Accessible Canada Act (ACA) which seek to identify, remove and prevent barriers for persons with disabilities. At APTN, we pride ourselves on having a diverse staff and on bringing diverse perspectives and realities to the screen. It is, therefore, crucial that we also ensure that our facilities, communications technologies and services are accessible to diverse demographics.

Based on the feedback we received from both our employees and viewers, our Accessibility Plan aims to identify, remove and prevent any existing barriers that individuals may encounter while engaging with our organization. We view our Accessibility Plan as a starting point for improvement and change. We are committed to learning from people with lived disability experiences to further improve the accessibility of our services and our organization.

APTN’s Executive Director of Marketing and Communications:

Toll-free: +1 (888) 278-8862

Email: [email protected]

If you would like to access APTN’s Accessibility Plan in an alternative format, Carolin Taubensee can also help you with that.

If you include your name and contact information in your email, voicemail, or posted letter, we will be sure to acknowledge receipt of your feedback request.

If you prefer to remain anonymous, please do not include your name or any personal information (e.g., phone number or return address) in your email, voicemail, or posted letter.

The personal information you choose to share with APTN will remain confidential unless you provide consent for us to share it with others.

2. Accessibility Summary

APTN is pleased to publish its first Accessibility Plan for 2023-2026, required under the Accessible Canada Act and related regulations approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and the Government of Canada. This is an important step towards ensuring that First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples as well as Canadians living with disabilities, can live in a barrier-free world by 2040.

APTN’s Accessibility Plan sets out a clear path for our organization to identify, remove and prevent accessibility barriers within our workplace and within the services that we offer. APTN is committed to ensuring that our employees can realize their full potential, and that our business partners feel accommodated when working with APTN. We are also committed to ensuring that our audiences can access the high quality and engaging audiovisual content that we offer on our broadcasting services, which reflects the needs and interests of Indigenous Peoples.

To that end, our Accessibility Plan 2023-2026 focuses on:

• hiring and retention;
• building stronger awareness within our organization around the experiences of, and potential barriers for, persons with disabilities;
• reviewing and addressing technological barriers to accessibility;
• ensuring meaningful access to the services we provide for persons with disabilities; and
• identifying and addressing barriers to external and internal facilities.

APTN appreciates the importance of the foundational principle “Nothing Without Us” espoused in the Accessible Canada Act. APTN is also mindful of the guiding principles set out in section 6 of the Accessible Canada Act, which informed the preparation of our Accessibility Plan, as well as APTN’s decision-making processes more broadly. These principles are:

• All persons must be treated with dignity regardless of their disability.
• All persons must have the same opportunity to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have regardless of their disabilities.
• All persons must have barrier-free access to full and equal participation in society, regardless of their disabilities.
• All persons must have meaningful options and be free to make their own choices, with support if they desire, regardless of their disabilities.
• Laws, policies, programs, services, and structures must consider the disabilities of persons, the different ways that persons interact with their environments and the intersecting forms of marginalization and discrimination faced by persons with disabilities.
• Persons with disabilities must be involved in the development and design of laws, policies, programs, services and structures.
• The development and revision of accessibility standards and the making of regulations must be done with the objective of achieving the highest level of accessibility for persons with disabilities.¹

In view of this, APTN engaged in internal and external consultations to ensure that accessibility barriers could be identified, removed and prevented within our organization today and into the future. Our extensive experience in community outreach allowed us to obtain useful and meaningful information from our employees, colleagues, and partners to help work towards a more accessible experience for all.

APTN’s Accessibility Plan conforms with the objectives and requirements of the federal Accessible Canada Act. Progress reports on our Plan will be published annually on our website, and our Accessibility Plan will be updated every three years as required by federal legislation.

We intend to build on the foundation that APTN has created up until now regarding accessibility within the organization. We also plan to identify, remove and prevent, whenever possible, any barriers that may exist for persons with disabilities employed at APTN or looking to utilize our services.

Accessibility statement: APTN is committed to addressing and preventing accessibility barriers for its employees, communities, partners and audiences, now and in the years ahead. While APTN has been particularly sensitive to persons with disabilities in its hiring and retention practices, its external and internal infrastructure, as well as the technologies that we use and the services that we provide, we recognize that there is always room for improvement and opportunities for growth. We are proud of the work that we have accomplished to date, and will endeavour to continue addressing barriers to create a more accessible organization for individuals living with one or more disabilities, particularly Indigenous Peoples.

Intersectionality of Indigenous Peoples and Individuals Living with Disabilities

According to Statistics Canada, in 2017, 32% of First Nations Peoples living off reserve, 30% of Métis and 19% of Inuit had one or more disabilities. These rates of disability were higher among First Nations Peoples and Métis living off reserve than they were for non-Indigenous people. APTN appreciates that there are also many other First Nations Peoples living on reserve who are living with disabilities as well.

It is through this lens and mandate that we prepared our Accessibility Plan 2023-2026 and through which we will strive to understand, address and overcome barriers that may exist for persons with disabilities, including members of our Indigenous communities.

4. Consultations for APTN’s Accessibility Plan

Outreach and dialogue with our employees, communities, audiences, and partners is an important part of APTN’s daily activities. APTN’s Executive Director of Marketing and Communications consults and connects with First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities in all regions of the country.

During the preparation of APTN’s Accessibility Plan, APTN undertook several consulting initiatives within and outside of our organization. In June 2022, we prominently posted a Feedback page on our website encouraging interested individuals to file feedback on how APTN can identify, remove and prevent accessibility barriers within our organization. One item of feedback we received pointed to subtitling of an important live APTN broadcast event on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Specifically, the request was to provide English or French subtitles for content spoken in Indigenous languages. This feedback was shared with our programming department, which will strive to ensure that our live broadcasts are accessible.

Attached at Appendix 1 is a copy of our Accessibility Feedback Page that can also be accessed from the homepage of APTN’s website at Accessibility Feedback | APTN.

We also consulted with our employees in May of 2023 to obtain their input on the identification, removal, and prevention of accessibility barriers at APTN. All employees were invited to participate in our internal consultation. APTN’s employee survey also provided a forum for employees to raise issues or to make recommendations regarding general accessibility at APTN. To that end, we sent out a questionnaire with 12 questions to all of our employees. The questionnaire was confidential and responding was optional. Employees could also provide anonymous responses, if they preferred. A one-week timeline to respond to the short questionnaire was provided to ensure that employees had sufficient time.

Twenty-two of 161 employees responded to our online survey. Responses were received both from individuals who live with disabilities and those who do not. The feedback received was invaluable both for our organization and in finalizing our Accessibility Plan. Through this process, we learned about the accessibility needs of our workforce, as well as issues to consider regarding our place of employment, communications, communications technologies and facilities.

During the preparation of our Accessibility Plan for 2023-2026, APTN’s executive management also met on several occasions to discuss how best to ensure the key goals of the Accessible Canada Act are met within our organization. Discussions on these topics were also had with various levels of management at APTN.

As for external consultations, APTN reached out to a number of organizations that work in the area of health and accessibility. During these discussions, APTN gained great insights into the realities and experiences of Indigenous Peoples living with one or more disability. External discussions were particularly helpful in providing opportunities to share and learn about best practices as we move down the path of identifying, removing and preventing barriers for Indigenous persons with disabilities.

We also deepened our knowledge on the importance of communications technologies for persons with disabilities. We learned about useful resources for accessibility training for personnel. Additionally, we learned about the prevalence of deafness in Indigenous communities and the importance of communicating using sign language.

Our external consultations also allowed us to turn our minds to how APTN can continue, and indeed improve, our service to our employees, communities, viewers and partners living with a disability.

Additionally, we read with great interest the report published by the Black Screen Office in 2022 entitled: “Being Seen: Peoples with Disabilities – Communities.” This report sheds a great deal of light on the barriers to accessibility within Canada’s broadcasting sector.⁵ For instance, the report underscores the lack of representation of persons with disabilities in on-air content.

5. Identifying, Removing and Preventing Barriers to Accessibility – Section 5 of the Accessible Canada Act

In preparing our Accessibility Plan, APTN has created an internal Accessibility Committee. This is a multi-disciplinary committee that draws expertise from a range of areas within our organization including: i) people and culture; ii) marketing and communications; iii) operations including broadcast technology, facilities, and digital media and information technology; iv) television programming services; and v) community outreach. For its initial phase, APTN’s Accessibility Committee will be co-led by our Executive Director of Marketing and Communications and our Executive Director of Operations. The Accessibility Committee will be instrumental in supporting APTN in its continued efforts to create a more accessible environment.

In preparing our Accessibility Plan, APTN has created an internal Accessibility Committee. This is a multi-disciplinary committee that draws expertise from a range of areas within our organization including: i) people and culture; ii) marketing and communications; iii) operations including broadcast technology, facilities, and digital media and information technology; iv) television programming services; and v) community outreach. For its initial phase, APTN’s Accessibility Committee will be co-led by our Executive Director of Marketing and Communications and our Executive Director of Operations. The Accessibility Committee will be instrumental in supporting APTN in its continued efforts to create a more accessible environment.

• Employment;
• The built environment
• Information and communication technologies;
• Communication, other than information and communication technologies;
• The procurement of goods, services and facilities;
• The design and delivery of programs and services;
• Transportation; and
• Areas designated under regulations made under paragraph 117(1)(b).

The following sections of APTN’s Accessibility Plan address each of these section 5 areas of the Accessible Canada Act.

5.1 Employment

As an Indigenous broadcaster with a workplace that employs more than 60% Indigenous Peoples, APTN deeply understands the principle of inclusion as established in the Accessible Canada Act. Currently, APTN employs approximately 161 employees. Our head office is in Winnipeg, Manitoba and we have news bureaus and journalists located across Canada.

APTN’s Department of People and Culture (P&C), plays an important role in ensuring accessibility within our organization. Our P&C team is mindful of accommodating individuals with disabilities during the hiring processes, onboarding of new employees and while individuals are employed at APTN. APTN well-established approach ensures that each new and existing employee is accommodated in terms of their workspace needs, including the appropriate technology, desk and ergonomic chair they need to effectively perform their duties.

That said, APTN acknowledges that there is more work to be done within our organization to address accessibility barriers to employment. Through our internal review and consultations, we have learned that our Human Resources policies and procedures should be updated, that our workforce could benefit from accessibility training, and that more work can be done in terms of hiring and retaining policies/procedures for persons with disabilities, particularly Indigenous Peoples living with disabilities.

APTN has, therefore, established a number of action items and goals to achieve in the area of accessibility and employment over the course of the next three years. The table below outlines our key action items.

Action	Planned Completion
Further develop the mandate and objectives of APTN’s Accessibility Committee.	Year 1
Review and update APTN’s policies, procedures, guidelines and practices related to accessibility, workplace and workstation accommodation. Communicate these policies to all APTN’s employees.	Year 1
Review and update APTN’s hiring practices to ensure the accessible nature of the process (e.g., job posting, interview questions, interview).	Year 1
Conduct a review of employee workstation and assess accessibility and accommodation needs.	Year 1
Identify options for accessibility training for all levels of employees at APTN.	Year 1
Ensure that APTN’s People and Culture department and Facilities teams, in particular, are provided with accessibility training.	Year 1
Continue to implement our accessibility training plan throughout the organization.	Year 2
Ensure that all employees at APTN are provided with accessibility and accommodation training.	Year 3
Review the policies, procedures, guidelines, and practices in place to ensure that APTN’s news journalists located across the country are well supported in their work.	Year 2
During the three-year period of APTN’s Accessibility Plan, review and update policies, procedures, guidelines, and practices to continuously assess whether barriers exist, how to remove them and how to prevent them in the context of employment within our organization.	Year 3

5.2 The Built Environment

APTN recognizes that equitable access to built environments (exterior and interior) is an important element in identifying, removing, and preventing barriers to accessibility. APTN’s broadcast facility is based in Winnipeg, Manitoba and operates in two buildings located side by side on Portage Avenue. One building houses the news and current affairs facility, and the other houses APTN’s administrative services.

Approximately four years ago, APTN undertook a significant review and update of the exterior of our facilities and the interior of our news and current affairs facility. This was done to ensure that our studios and facilities were accessible to employees with disabilities (current and future), community members, our audiences as well as APTN partners. It was also done to ensure compliance with provincial legislative accessibility requirements.

This accessibility update involved building new ramps, ensuring accessible entries, widening doors, installing safety bars, increasing the print size on signage, enhancing lighting, updating bathroom facilities and installing an updated elevator. During these important facilities updates, we also ensured that a news studio located on the main floor of our news and current affairs building was fully accessible.

APTN is aware that further work can be done to identify, prevent and eliminate accessibility barriers to our built environment. The following table outlines the key action items that APTN plans to address during the next three years regarding APTN’s built environment.

Action	Planned Completion
Establish a communications plan to inform employees and visitors of accommodations that APTN can provide, and any limitations that may exist within the APTN facilities.	Year 1
Conduct a review and assessment of APTN’s facilities to assess what measures can be undertaken to render them more accessible.	Year 1
Develop a plan to determine what work should be done to APTN’s facilities to ensure greater accessibility.	Year 2
Implement the plan that sets out the work to be done to ensure greater accessibility of APTN’s facilities.	Year 3

5.3 Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Information and communications technologies are important platforms for ensuring accessibility within a place of employment. At APTN, the Digital Media and Information Technology Department is responsible for providing APTN’s employees with ICT products and services, including those required to accommodate individuals with disabilities.

This department works together with our People and Culture Department when on-boarding new employees and assessing any specific technology-specific accommodations that may be required. These individuals also help address any accessibility issues that may arise for existing employees, whose technological and workspace needs may evolve and change over time.

While APTN strives to ensure that each employee has access to the technologies and platforms they need to best fulfil their employment obligations, we acknowledge that there is room for improvement in ensuring the needs of our staff are met. We appreciate that our policies and procedures must be reviewed and updated on a regular basis. We have also learned through this process that there may be barriers that exist for our employees to seek out and access particular technologies that may be needed.

We have also learned that our websites and apps may not be using the most current features, which may be limiting accessibility.

To ensure that APTN remains proactive and accessible, the following table outlines our key plans in the areas of Information and Communications Technology over the next three years.

Action	Planned Completion
Conduct a review and assessment of communications technology options for persons with disabilities.	Year 1
Conduct a review and assessment of APTN’s policies and practices for acquiring, developing, and implementing new technologies.	Year 1
Conduct a review and assessment of accessibility barriers to APTN’s website and web apps.	Year 2
APTN will create a page on its internal website for information related to the accessibility features of various ICT tools and how employees can request accommodations related to these tools.	Year 2
Conduct a review and assessment of ICT tools and platforms (e.g., website, web apps) that require updating to ensure they are accessible by persons with disabilities.	Year 3

5.4 Communications other than Information and Communications Technologies

This portion of our Accessibility Plan relates to external communications with our communities and audiences who reside in all areas of the country. As previously mentioned, APTN’s Executive Director of Marketing and Communications connects with our Indigenous communities and viewers across Canada. This community outreach is vital for APTN to meet its service mandate to First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples. It has also been instrumental in assisting APTN to provide meaningful and high-quality programming, including important news and information programming for Indigenous audiences.

APTN appreciates that there may be barriers to Indigenous Peoples living with disabilities participating in our outreach programs. Their input is also invaluable to our service’s success and its ability to meet its public interest mandate. The following table outlines APTN’s key action items in relation to our community outreach and accessibility over the next three years.

Action	Planned Completion
Conduct a review and assessment of our community outreach programs and identify any accessibility barriers to participation that may exist. Consider alternatives to face-to-face meetings, such as online meetings where texting is available.	Year 1
Develop new guidelines for APTN’s community outreach to ensure accessibility.	Year 2
Implement guidelines for APTN’s community outreach to ensure participation by Indigenous Peoples living with disabilities.	Year 3

5.5 The Procurement of Goods, Services and Facilities

Procurement at APTN is conducted largely by its Facilities, Information Technology and Operations departments. These departments fulfil an important part of our organization’s work, while also having a direct impact on accessibility and accommodation at APTN.

In light of this, it would be appropriate to conduct a review of our procurement practices to address any barriers to accessibility that may exist in our current approach. We also appreciate that there may be suppliers in the marketplace that are particularly supportive of offering goods, services and facilities that are accessible for persons with disabilities.

Action	Planned Completion
Conduct a review and assessment of current procurement policies, processes, and tools to improve accessibility at APTN.	Year 1
Develop a procurement checklist that incorporates accessibility considerations.	Year 1
Develop a list of suppliers that offer goods, services and facilities that are accessible for persons with disabilities.	Year 2

5.6 The Design and Delivery of Programs and Services

APTN’s most important service consists of its national Indigenous broadcasting service entitled: Aboriginal Peoples Television Network or APTN. APTN is unique in Canada as the only television service that offers programming by, for and about Indigenous Peoples. APTN offers a wide range of television programming to its viewers, including news and information about key events that impact Indigenous Peoples, entertainment programming, dramas, feature films, kids’ programs, documentaries, lifestyle programming and sports. APTN has also more recently developed an online streaming platform, APTN lumi, which offers a wide range of our audiovisual content on an on-demand basis – available anywhere in Canada, at any time.

In addition to ensuring that persons with disabilities can access the programming broadcast on our services, it is also important that they see themselves on the screen. While APTN’s content is highly relevant and reflective of Indigenous Peoples, more work can be done to ensure that individuals living with disabilities, and in particular Indigenous People living with disabilities, are reflected in our programming. The following outlines our plans during the next three years regarding APTN’s audiovisual content.

Action	Planned Completion
Conduct outreach sessions with APTN’s news journalists to consider how APTN’s news and information can identify and address any barriers that may exist.	Year 1
Conduct a review and assessment of programming broadcast on APTN and APTN lumi. Consider how APTN and APTN lumi can reflect the experiences of individuals living with disabilities, in particular Indigenous Peoples living with disabilities.	Years 1, 2 and 3

5.7 Transportation

This area of accommodation and accessibility is not relevant to APTN. We, therefore, do not have any comments to provide in this section.

5.8 Licence Conditions and Requirements Under the Broadcasting Act

Television plays a crucial role in informing viewers about society. APTN wishes to ensure that all its audience members – regardless of ability – are informed, educated and entertained through its programming. APTN, therefore, places a high priority on ensuring people who are deaf or hard of hearing can benefit from the closed captioning it provides, and blind or partially sighted viewers can benefit from described video (DV) functionality.

As prescribed by the CRTC, APTN is required by condition of licence to ensure that 100% of its programs, advertisements, and promotional content in both English and French is available to viewers with closed captioning.⁶ The CRTC also requires a 100% accuracy rate for recorded material and imposes quality standards for the captioning of most live programming. French-language captioning must target an accuracy rate of 85%, while live captioning of programming in English must achieve an accuracy rate of at least 98% as measured by a qualified evaluator following Canadian NER Evaluation Guidelines.

When it comes to described video, the CRTC has provided tiered requirements geared to a broadcaster’s size and resources, which have slowly been ramping up. For APTN, the network is required by condition of licence to provide described video for all programming broadcast in primetime (between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.) seven days per week – with the exception of newscasts or sports programming, which is not well-suited for DV and is exempt from these requirements.⁷ APTN also uses audio description to assist audience members who may be visually impaired by having a host or announcer describe information that may be presented graphically on screen. To that end, APTN is required by condition of licence to provide audio description for all key elements of Canadian information programs, including news programming.⁸

APTN appreciates the importance of our accessibility requirements for our audiences. We, therefore, strive to meet and exceed these obligations each year. As an added layer of accessibility and accommodation, APTN has included subtitling in English or French for our content broadcast in Indigenous languages. This allows non-Indigenous language speakers and audience members who are deaf or hard of hearing to tune-in and access this particular programming. It also serves to strengthen language reclamation for individuals who wish to watch programming in their Indigenous language but are not yet (or are no longer) fully fluent.

Over the course of the next three years, APTN will seek to meet and exceed its accessibility requirements for our audiences, as set out in our broadcast licence.

Action	Planned Completion
Meet and where possible strive to exceed licensing requirements related to closed captioning, described video and audio description.	Years 1 - 3

Conclusion

APTN appreciates the opportunity to develop and share this Accessibility Plan. We are committed to making our services, our company, and our communities more accommodating and more accessible for individuals living with disabilities. We are proud of the work we have completed to date. We also recognize that more work is required to achieve the objectives of the Accessible Canada Act. We look forward to continuing our efforts of identifying, removing and preventing barriers to accessibility for all, in particular for Indigenous Peoples.

Appendix 1 – APTN Feedback Process

Accessibility Feedback

The purpose of the accessibility feedback form is to collect information to improve our accessibility services, related, but not limited, to one of the following areas:

• Content accessibility (e.g. closed captions, described video)
• Digital accessibility (e.g. assistive technology use on the website or app)
• Facilities (e.g. APTN facilities access, events accessibility)

Please fill out the form below to provide feedback or receive accessibility support.

Email (optional)
To keep your feedback anonymous, leave the email field blank

Telephone number (optional)
To keep your feedback anonymous, leave the telephone number field blank

Issue type * Select an Issue
Please choose the option that best relates to your concern

Subject *

Please summarize your concern in less than 60 characters

Feedback *
Please describe your concern, including any relevant details such as the webpage or program involved.

Attachment (optional)

Consent to be contacted

I would like to be contacted by APTN for future consultation on improving Accessibility

By using this form, you agree to the collection, use and storage of any personal information you provide to us. We will use such information solely to evaluate and improve our accessibility services and, subject to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, such information will not be disclosed without your consent. APTN may use third party service providers for the collection and storage of data and such providers are required to maintain the confidentiality of such data.

Submit my feedback

You can also contact us:

APTN’s Executive Director of Marketing and Communications is responsible for receiving feedback for APTN.