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Web design for Toronto.
Where accessibility is the law, not the nice-to-have.

The Gulf pages on this site lead on invoicing because that is the regulation reshaping systems there. Ontario is different: there is no Canadian e-invoicing mandate to build for, and the rule that actually binds your website is an accessibility statute with a standard, a threshold and a date that passed five years ago. Most of the Ontario sites we are shown do not meet it. That is the work worth paying for in Toronto.

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What the AODA requires of your website

Read from the Government of Ontario on 2 November 2026. These are the published terms, not a vendor’s summary of them, because the detail is where the money is.

WCAG 2.0 Level AA, in force since 1 January 2021

Under Ontario Regulation 191/11, public websites and web content must meet the WCAG 2.0 Level AA success criteria. The deadline was 1 January 2021, so this is not something coming — it is something already overdue on most sites.

Fifty or more employees is the threshold

A business or non-profit with 50 or more employees is covered, as is a designated public sector organisation. Under 50, Ontario encourages it rather than requiring it. Note that you are responsible for a site you control through a contract, so outsourcing the build does not move the duty.

WCAG 2.0, not 2.1 or 2.2

The regulation names version 2.0. Newer versions exist and are better, but the legal reference is 2.0 Level AA, and a supplier quoting you for 2.2 should be able to say why. We build to 2.2 where it costs nothing extra and tell you which criteria are law and which are good practice.

The exemptions are narrow and specific

Two Level AA criteria are exempt: 1.2.4, live captions, and 1.2.5, pre-recorded audio description. Content published before 1 January 2012 is out of scope, and so are internal sites — intranets and extranets — though an accessible format must still be provided on request. Nothing else is optional.

Sources, checked 2 November 2026

  1. Government of Ontario, How to make websites accessible: under O. Reg. 191/11 a business or non-profit with 50 or more employees must meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA on its public websites and web content published after 1 January 2012, in force since 1 January 2021; success criteria 1.2.4 (live captions) and 1.2.5 (pre-recorded audio description) are exempt and internal sites are out of scope

There is no Canadian e-invoicing mandate to build for

Worth stating because we get asked, and because the Gulf pages on this site might give the wrong impression about where the world has got to.

  • Canada is not a Peppol Authority OpenPeppol lists twenty-six, including Oman, the UAE, Australia, Singapore, Japan and Malaysia. Canada is not among them, and neither is the United States. There is no national network standard to build towards.
  • So do not buy invoicing plumbing you do not need A Toronto quote with an e-invoicing compliance line in it is selling you something no published Canadian rule requires. Spend the money on accessibility, where there is a statute, a standard and a date.
  • Keep billing and invoice output separate anyway Not for compliance — because it is better design, and because if Canada does follow the pattern the twenty-six have set, you absorb it as a new output instead of a rebuild.
  • Your provincial obligations are the ones to check Accessibility in Ontario, and privacy rules that differ by province. Those are the Canadian specifics worth an hour with your own adviser, not invoice formats.

Sources, checked 2 November 2026

  1. OpenPeppol AISBL, Peppol Authorities: twenty-six jurisdictions are listed, among them the Oman Tax Authority (Fawtara) and the UAE Ministry of Finance; neither Canada nor the United States has one, and OpenPeppol itself acts as the authority where none exists

When we are the wrong firm for this

Accessibility is not something a studio can bolt on at the end for a fee, and anyone offering that is selling you an overlay widget that does not make a site conform and has been the subject of litigation elsewhere. It is keyboard order, contrast, labels, focus states and semantics, decided while the thing is being designed. If you have an existing site and need it brought to WCAG 2.0 AA, that is an audit and a remediation project with a different shape from a build, and a specialist accessibility firm in Toronto may well do it better and cheaper than we would.

Where we fit is a new build, where meeting Level AA from the first component costs very little and retrofitting it costs a great deal. Ask us for a remediation of an existing Ontario site and we will tell you honestly whether we or a specialist is the better buy.

Questions

Before you ask.

Does our Toronto website legally have to be accessible?

If you are a business or non-profit with 50 or more employees, or a designated public sector organisation, then yes: Ontario Regulation 191/11 requires your public websites and web content to meet WCAG 2.0 Level AA, and it has since 1 January 2021. Content published before 1 January 2012 is out of scope, as are internal sites, and two Level AA criteria — 1.2.4 live captions and 1.2.5 pre-recorded audio description — are exempt.

Does it help that we outsourced the website?

No. Ontario places the duty on the organisation that controls the site, directly or through a contract. A supplier who did not build to the standard has given you a problem, not an excuse.

Is there Canadian e-invoicing we need to prepare for?

No published national mandate, and Canada is not one of the twenty-six Peppol Authorities OpenPeppol lists. If a quote has a Canadian e-invoicing compliance line in it, ask what rule it implements. Separate billing from invoice output anyway, because it is better design and it makes any future regime a new output rather than a rebuild.
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