In its Multi-Year Accessibility Plan, 2023 to 2027, Ontario Creates committed to publishing annual status updates on progress toward meeting the plan’s goals and milestones. The points below summarize key accomplishments from the 2024 calendar year.

• Ontario Creates continued to include accessibility provisions across all of its investment programs, welcoming applications from people with disabilities and people who are Deaf, as well as other people who face barriers to accessing technology. These provisions are intended to improve access to people that may experience barriers related to the application process, and include an offer of funding support if assistance is needed to fill out program applications as well as the possibility of obtaining support to complete project deliverables for projects that are eventually awarded funding.
• In line with our strategic plan, Ontario Creates is committed to incorporating Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (including people with disabilities) considerations into program guidelines and e-blasts/call for applications on a permanent, ongoing basis.
• Through the Industry Development Program, Ontario Creates supported the Disability Screen Office (DSO)’s Accessibility and Disability in the Canadian Screen Industry Training Series, which consists of a video-based training program for screen industry stakeholders to understand disability and access needs within the sector. The training is offered in an asynchronous online format, and is intended to remove information barriers by making accessibility-related resources easily accessible to a wider audience.
• The agency continued to apply principles of accessibility to both virtual and in-person events where possible, including accessibility-focused language on event invitations, captioning, transcription and ASL interpretation. When considering potential venues for in-person events (including Celebrate Ontario, the Trillium Book Award, and the Workforce Symposium in 2024), venue accessibility is a specific requirement.
• The agency continued to actively promote employment opportunities to diverse communities and people with disabilities inside and outside the Ontario Public Service (OPS) by ensuring postings were circulated to a broad range of groups, OPS employee networks, job boards and organizations supporting diverse communities.
• Ontario Creates continued to offer a diversity enhancement component across all investment programs designed to encourage and provide support to projects that, in their voice, story, language elements or diversity of key creatives, meet the provincial definition of diversity (which includes physical and intellectual ability). Diversity continued to be an evaluation criterion across all investment programs.
• Ontario Creates continued to prioritize improving digital accessibility and user experience on the agency’s websites. In 2024, an accessibility widget was added to the corporate website that allows website viewers to implement a number of different accessibility options to improve their individual experience while navigating the website. This includes the ability for the user to set preferences regarding contrast, text size, screen reader improvements, and other website settings that may affect their ability to interact with our corporate website. This tool is available in both English and French. A similar widget was integrated with Film Commission’s website as part of an overall refresh conducted in 2024.
• The majority of projects funded through the IDM Fund in 2024 included budget line items for built in accessibility features, including colour blind modes, accessible menus, button remapping, and subtitles. The IDM Fund also provided support to Disability Today’s e-learning series that delivers disability-specific diversity and inclusion education to post-secondary students and instructors.
• Also through the Industry Development Program, Ontario Creates supported the Disabled Producers Lab in 2024-25, a project run by the National Screen Institute/L’Institut national des arts de l’écran. The virtual program empowers five emerging producers with disabilities who are also marginalized by gender, with industry-relevant skills and mentorship. The program aims to challenge existing structures and seek adaptive solutions to make productions universally accessible, while helping participants enhance their careers and influence systemic change in production practices.
• Through the Business Intelligence Program, the Disability Screen Office (DSO) received support to undertake the development of a Best Practices Guide to Disability Engagement in the Canadian Screen Sector. This research project will offer standards and guidelines for disability representation and inclusion on and off screen, in both the Anglophone and Francophone markets.
• The Ontario Music Investment Fund has supported the inclusion of ASL interpreters for the hearing impaired, as well as visual descriptions of presenters for the blind, at events/festivals like Venus Fest and Contact Ontarois.