I do not approve of my tax dollars being wasted on this

[trouble]

Previously on "The Canadian Government Thinks Accessibility Is Optional Even Though They Signed The UN Rights of Disabled Persons Treaty Just Last Year and Disability Is A Protected Class In the Charter":

The Canadian Government Is Going To Court So They Don’t Have To Make Web Content Accessible To Screen Readers

AND

WIN!: Federal Court Orders Canadian Government To Make Websites Accessible To Screen Readers!

Canadian Government Appeals Landmark Accessibility Ruling

The government is now appealing against this ruling, claiming that the judge exceeded his jurisdiction in finding a “system-wide failure” of government through its websites, when it was only Jodhan who was proved to be directly affected. The government is also claiming the judge “erred in law” by ordering it to ‘remedy’ the websites of 146 government agencies, when only 106 agencies used the website guidelines (‘Common Look and Feel Standards 1.0’) which were found to provide inadequate accessibility.

A hearing for reconsideration filed by the Canadian Government will take place on 8 February via a video conference. “We are still awaiting their official documents to see exactly what they are appealing but it appears that they are appealing the judge’s entire decision,” Jodhan told E-Access Bulletin.

Jodhan, who will be opposing the appeal, told E-Access Bulletin that it was “very sad and disappointing” that the government had chosen to take this course of action. “When the Canadian Government decides to waste more precious taxpayers’ funds and time fighting something that they should have been addressing all along, what does it really say? The longer they take to start working with us to fix this problem, the longer it would be before we can look forward to having accessibility become a reality” she said.

Hey Political Parties of Canada Want my vote? Fucking care about this.

Comments

[silveradept]

And worse, the argument appears to be that they didn't like the way the judge ruled, not that they have some sort of objection to the demand that their websites be made accessible. What the Frak, Mr. Harper?

[trouble]

Harper and his ilk just hate being told to stop being jackasses.

[ouyangdan]

I am completely gobsmacked that they not only pursued this, but that they are now appealing this... I mean, OK, perhaps I could see the court case (I can't, but wev), but going after the appeal is fucking laying out all of your ass-hattery right there in the open. Saying "Hey, Canada, I am willing to waste your tax dollars, some of which were paid by disabled persons, on infringing the rights of disabled persons!".

UGH.

[trouble]

I'm so... just... yeah. Angry with rage. Poor Don, I came home after posting this and kicked things.

[scruloose]

The good news, such as it is, is that those sound like pretty weak grounds for an appeal. It seems likely that even if they do well on appeal, they'll still have to remedy the websites of 106 agencies. And if that much of the ruling gets upheld (even if the basis of the ruling gets stripped down from "system-wide failure" to "this one citizen was proven to be affected") well, that sets a clear precedent for somebody to file suit against any of the remaining agencies... or maybe get a class action rolling.

And that seems (from my reading of the news coverage of the case) to be if the appeals court agrees with the government's interpretation. It's also entirely possible that the appeals court will hear the arguments and conclude "quit yer whining and fix it".

Still and all, yes. It's a shameful and embarrassing case of the government spending taxpayers' money to try and get out of its obligation to provide services to its citizens on an equal and non-discriminatory basis. All the more embarrassing given that the technical standards for accessible web content are pretty well-developed and not that hard to put into place.

[trouble]

I suspect the big thing that's throwing it is that most of their web content is still in PDFs, and while the technology has moved forward on PDFs to make them accessible to screen readers, a lot of people haven't re-encoded them or whatever to take advantage of it. So, you know, they'd have to hire someone for a year to do that. Or something, i don't even know. *sigh*

[kaz]

I. I. I. THE FUCK IS THIS. DDDDDD:

[trouble]

My tax dollars at work.

But what really gets me, I must admit, is that no politician I have contacted has acknowledged this is important at all. I guess if they did they'd have to have accessible content on their websites, and they don't.

[indigojo]

Surely it's easier to hire people for a few hours to check that a website is accessible than to hire lawyers to fight a court case? That's something that can be done at very little expense (as in, three-figure sums at most) at the time a website is developed. Or preferably, hire developers who use proven scripting and database technologies (like PHP) which output HTML and not those who use expensive proprietary ones like Flash and Air.

[trouble]

I have no idea what their thought process is at all, seriously. It feels like arguing for the sake of argument.