The Accessibility for Manitobans Act and Standards

Scott Best: I think one of the most important parts of the information and communication standard is that it puts everyone on a level playing field.

You know, people who don't face barriers or don't have accessibility issues maybe don't think about that.

Collen Watters: Oh, I think it's vital because then I can I feel inclusive, I feel equal, I feel able to perform my work duties

That's the same as everybody else, and if that's not there, then then that's a barrier.

Shawna Joynt: Well, I'm an Indigenous woman. I'm hard of hearing. And I'm on a couple of government councils as well.

My strength is that I wanted to become involved in the Deaf Community, to advocate for the rights of Deaf people and to remove barriers.

In one area of Manitoba. I visited a public school where a Deaf child was a student. While observing, I was stunned to see the interpreter was someone with only a 101 level of sign language.

Not a fluent signer, just 101. This meant the child was missing a lot of information, and this was their education. And I've been involved ever since, as that impacted me profoundly.

I don't want that for our youth. We need to change for our young people.

Scott Best: I'm totally blind and I have been pretty much since the age of three. I had about 3% vision for the first three years of my life. And then when I was three years old, I lost the rest of it to glaucoma.

I'm a writer and an editor, so I write and edit a lot of public documents for the government: News releases, web copy.

Just the fact that everything is so digital has helped a lot, but there are still some things.

When a document, say, is in an image format that my screen reading software won't recognize. But thankfully it's a pretty easy fix, people are going to have something like that in a text format of some kind anyway. So, you just post that on the website instead of the image.

Collen Watters: I work as a policy analyst at the Manitoba Accessibility Office.

Well, I have no vision. So as a result, I use a white cane. And for my work I use a screen reader, information and communication is vital to everybody and it needs to be accessible to everyone.

Charts particularly the screen reader will just read blank lines.

Shawna Joynt: Well, just, I would really like to see more access to interpreters. Also... make sure the interpreter has what they need. It's important that the two of us work together to ensure that things go smoothly.

You know, teamwork.

Colleen Watters: It’s important and I feel positive as we move forward that if information is accessible, then the standard requirements can be met. So that they can provide accessible information and make their programs and services inclusive for everyone.

Shawna Joynt: Because we are all one. And, we should all respect one another. We all have different abilities, different ways. It's important to recognize that and respect that and try to accommodate that.

Scott Best: I think the progress that I've seen has really been in awareness. People are far more aware that they need to be thinking about accessibility. It's a really great feeling because - now it's a little bit more of a of a level playing field.

I don't have to ask for accommodations as much anymore. Accessibility is being built into the normal processes, and I think that's great because that's really the way that it should be.