They Don't Want Your Money!

Recently Accessibility News did site checks on 2 sites, one by the Toronto Sun www.classifiedextra.ca and the other by the Toronto Star www.shopalot.ca. Neither was accessible as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Accessibility News had suggested that perhaps they didn't consider the Disabled as "buyers" and by not making their sites accessible, they've effectively shut the door on potential customers.

As stats have revealed "FACT: Canadians with disabilities have a combined annual disposable income of $25 billion annually, making this a spending group with significant clout." (Conference Board of Canada 2001) Given this revelation you would think that they would be falling over themselves, doing whatever it takes to grab a piece of that pie, by let's say, "Making their sites accessible".

Perhaps it's ignorance or complacency, but these stats are not new and yet so many websites, with something to sell, don't make them accessible. They not only discriminate against the disabled, but it would seem that they are discriminating against our money as well. Go figure.

Accessibility News had forwarded the site checks to the author of the Sun article and Toronto Star's Helen Henderson but no one provided any response or indication that they even looked at it.

Helen Henderson had a recent column on transportation, in which she writes: "Of all the complaints I receive about the way things work or don't work in this world, some of the most impassioned relate to transportation."

"It's tough to get around if you can't move or navigate within the mainstream. If you can't get around, you are doomed to frustration and isolation, which is very bad for the health, not to mention the soul."

She could have easily inserted "surfing the internet" for the word transportation, but if people can't make their sites accessible because it's the right thing to do and our money is no good either, then all we have left is Bill 118 and at the rate it is moving, it'll be 2025 before we see any movement towards accessible websites for the disabled.

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