When Max Brod helped enact the Canada Accessible Act in 2019, artificial intelligence wasn’t on anyone’s radar. But seven years later, AI has come on board, and companies are eager to adjust their accessibility guidelines, consultants say.
When Max Brod helped enact the Canada Accessible Act in 2019, artificial intelligence wasn’t on anyone’s radar. But seven years later, AI has come on board, and companies are eager to adjust their accessibility guidelines, consultants say.
“When we were writing the bill, we weren’t thinking about AI at all,” said Breaux, a former civil servant and now an accessibility consultant with Ottawa-based Niewe Consulting. “When I read the original version of this law, AI was not involved.”
When the ACA went into effect, businesses didn’t know where to start, Blow said, and he said he’s seeing the same trend now with AI.
“On average, we respond to eight to 10 calls a day,” he said. “We’re getting calls from government agencies and businesses. Everyone is scared to some extent about their communications messages. They don’t want to make mistakes or do anything wrong. They want to make sure they nip this problem in the bud now that they’re relying on AI.”
During his time as a public servant and advisor, Brault led the development of a report from the federal government’s Committee on Disability Champions and Chairs and was instrumental in the development of Bill C-81, which became the ACA. He has since written about the act and his role in its creation: Race to the starting line.
In 2019, he left public service to become BDO’s Vice President of People and Transformation and founded BDO Accessibility Consulting, a new business line designed to help organizations meet the standards under this law.
Brough, who uses a power wheelchair, said he made the decision because he hadn’t seen many people like him in the business sector.
“I wanted to reflect on my years in government,” he said. “I really wanted to make money. I wanted to make more money and I wanted to show the industry that people with disabilities can be successful in business. I also wanted to show people with disabilities that they can make a living representing their communities in the business sector. And I think it worked.”
The ACA required all federally regulated organizations to develop and publish an accessibility action plan. The federal government has invested millions of dollars to support its implementation.
For Brodt, this was a business opportunity, and he pitched it to several consulting firms before BDO hired him.
“I had to kind of sell myself and say, look, this is a new industry that not many people are going to get into right now, and I can make you x amount of dollars over a certain period of time,” he said.
“I had no way to prove that other than to say that the federal government was going to spend $300 million to $400 million within the first two to three years. This is a big change. So I said if we could get somewhere between that 2 to 5 percent, we could turn this into a very profitable area for us.”
He added, “It was a matter of marketing myself and the return on investment of bringing me in.”
The federal government ended up spending nearly $2 billion from 2019 to 2025, Breaux said, and BDO’s new line of business took off.
During Brodt’s time at the company, his team worked with more than 30 government agencies and 20 companies of all sizes to create accessibility action plans. Blount said BDO also helps clients implement and update elements of the plan.
All told, Brodt said his work brought in $13.5 million worth of business for the company. “It was very successful, and it’s still successful today,” he said.
Brodt said other consulting firms have adopted similar business models, but they are also following in his footsteps and hiring more professionals with disabilities.
“The industry is now accepting people with disabilities as part of the consulting culture,” he said. “We currently have a team of people with disabilities working on this.”
AI and its impact on accessibility
Brodt said he has seen companies bring more people with disabilities onto their teams without taking the appropriate precautions, but the infusion of AI could set back that progress.
“Organizations are asking, why do we need to hire more people when AI can help us?” he said. “If AI can take on some of the work, why do we need 50 people when we can do it with 20?”
At Niewe, Brodt said he helps companies adjust and adopt AI without losing sight of the goal of inclusivity.
As companies increasingly incorporate AI into different aspects of their business, Brodt said they also try to keep its flaws in mind.
“They value and trust AI very much, and they want to make sure that AI lives up to their expectations,” Brodt said. “AI doesn’t understand what the failure is. If you’re going to focus on AI, you have to make sure it’s handled.”
As part of his work with Niewe, Mr. Brault is once again assisting companies through their adjustment period. One of the tools he uses is Ableism Debiaser. This is a platform that checks bias and exclusionary language in written communications. The platform, created by three people with disabilities, recently won the federal government’s G7 GovAI Grand Challenge, which funds innovative and ethical AI tools.
According to Blount, this is a tool that can help companies find gaps in current accessibility guidelines, something that most AI models lack.
“If they run that document through an AI tool and ask what’s missing, they’re putting a lot of trust in AI,” he says. “But ableism tools can identify not just ableism, but also other things that can be updated to ensure those concepts are incorporated. That doesn’t solve the problem, don’t get me wrong, but it can help identify where disabled people are falling behind.”
He said that while the transition will not be easy, the business community has already demonstrated the ability to adjust and adopt better practices to improve accessibility and inclusion.
“Things have become more accessible, but when we were working on this bill, we didn’t see AI coming. There’s something else coming that you or I can’t predict that’s going to hit us in 10 years. We don’t know what it is, but there’s something,” he said.
“There’s always positive movement, there’s always something being done and changing. I believe that every decade is better than the previous one and I feel very positive that things are moving forward.”
