Accessibility Statement

Branch aims to conform to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA, the international standard that underlies every major Canadian accessibility law. We apply the same standards site-wide regardless of which province a visitor is in.

Specifically, Branch follows:

• The federal Accessible Canada Act (ACA, 2019). The federal benchmark for barrier-free design, which references WCAG 2.1 AA for digital services.
• The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA, 2005) and its Integrated Accessibility Standards Regulation, which require WCAG 2.0 AA (and increasingly 2.1 AA) for public-facing websites.
• The Manitoba Accessibility Act (AMA, 2013), Nova Scotia Accessibility Act (2017), British Columbia Accessible BC Act (2021), and Quebec Loi 25 digital accessibility standards.
• EN 301 549. The EU technical standard for digital accessibility, which many Canadian government procurement contracts now reference.

Current status: Partially conformant. Most of the Service meets WCAG 2.1 AA, with ongoing work on complex visualizations (voting bars), and any newly added content.

• Skip-to-content link on every page
• Visible focus indicators on all interactive elements (2 px solid oxblood ring with 2 px offset)
• Keyboard navigation throughout. Including Cmd/Ctrl+K search and ? help
• Semantic HTML and ARIA labels on icons, buttons, and dialogs
• Body text and metadata meet WCAG 2.1 AA 4.5:1 contrast in both light and dark themes
• Form-input borders meet 1.4.11 (3:1) so empty fields are perceivable
• Bill, politician, and party URLs use human-readable slugs (e.g. /bills/c-22-45-1) instead of UUIDs, so links read meaningfully aloud
• Responsive layout works with screen readers and mobile assistive technology
• Respect for prefers-reduced-motion. All transitions and animations collapse to ~0 ms when the OS setting is on
• Resizable text up to 200% without loss of functionality
• Form labels associated with inputs (htmlFor or aria-label); errors announced with role="alert"
• Bilingual (EN/FR) with language switcher; document.documentElement.lang updates on locale change

• Voting record progress bars rely on color to differentiate yea/nay/abstain. We are adding text labels to supplement.
• Politician photos may have generic alt text (the politician's name) rather than descriptive image text.
• External news sites linked from /news are not under our control.

Branch is designed to be compatible with the following assistive technologies:

• NVDA, JAWS (Windows screen readers)
• VoiceOver (macOS, iOS)
• TalkBack (Android)
• Browser zoom up to 200%
• Keyboard-only navigation
• Speech recognition software (Dragon)

If you encounter an accessibility barrier. Anything that prevents you from using the Service. Please tell us. We treat these reports as urgent and aim to respond within 2 business days.

Email: help@branchpolitics.ca

When reporting, please include:

• The page URL where the issue occurred
• A description of the barrier
• Your assistive technology and operating system (if applicable)
• Any workaround you'd like us to communicate while we fix the issue

If you feel we have not responded adequately to your accessibility concern, you may contact your provincial human rights commission or the relevant provincial accessibility office. Nova Scotia residents can contact the Accessibility Directorate at the Department of Justice (accessibility@novascotia.ca).