Accessible Canada Act (ACA) Documentation

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

General

Principles of the ACA

Consultations

Priority Areas

Regulatory Conditions

Conclusion

Appendix A - ACA Section 6, Principles

Appendix B - Regulatory Conditions

General

Purpose and Scope

This Accessibility Plan has been prepared in accordance with the requirements of the Accessible Canada Act and its regulations (ACA).

The purpose of this Accessibility Plan is to outline Paramount Streaming Canada’s strategy for identifying, addressing, and preventing barriers to accessibility across our digital platforms and services. This includes our websites, applications, and the digital systems used by both customers and team members.

You can provide accessibility feedback (including feedback on this plan) or request an alternate format of our Accessibility Plan or description of our feedback process in several ways, including by:

Email

support_accessibilityca@paramountplus.com

Feedback form on our website

Contact Us form

Phone

(416) 969-7116

Website:

https://support.paramountplus.com

Contact Person

John Sweet

Vice President, Accessibility and Technology Compliance

Feedback can be provided anonymously.

Principles of the ACA

This Accessibility Plan has been written in accordance with the principles of the ACA (see Appendix A).

Executive Summary

The guiding principles of dignity, independence, integration, and equal opportunity reflect our commitment to ongoing progress and transparency. This plan applies to all Paramount Streaming Canada operations subject to ACA requirements and will be reviewed and updated at least once every three years to reflect evolving best practices, feedback from persons with disabilities, and measurable progress against our accessibility goals.

Commitment to Accessibility.

Paramount Streaming Canada is committed to building a barrier-free digital environment where all users can access and enjoy our services independently and with dignity. As a division of Paramount Entertainment Canada ULC and part of a global entertainment company, we recognize the importance of accessibility not only as a compliance obligation but as a critical part of our responsibility to the public.

As part of the Paramount Streaming division, Paramount+ is dedicated to continuously improving the accessibility of our platforms through proactive design, inclusive development practices, user feedback, and collaboration with experts in accessibility and assistive technology. We understand accessibility as an ongoing effort, one that requires listening to our users, responding to their needs, and embedding inclusive thinking into every part of our organization.

Consultations

Prior to and during the preparation of our Accessibility Plan, we conducted several consultation initiatives to obtain invaluable input from our community and industry experts in Canada. 

Contact Support Page

Paramount+ maintains a support form on its support website that includes support information specific to accessibility. Our support form is designed to collect information from persons with disabilities in a range of areas, such as:

Additionally, Paramount+ offers a public point of contact for accessibility inquiries. The Accessibility Champion receives this feedback and ensures it is directed to the appropriate teams for follow-up.

Feedback from Canadian viewers submitted to our Accessibility Champion and through our public support form has shaped accessibility priorities, particularly regarding assistive technology usability and content availability.

External Accessibility Audits

To inform this plan, Paramount+ engaged Applause, a third-party accessibility testing vendor, to conduct a comprehensive review of the Paramount+ application. The assessment included assistive technology testing across web, mobile, and connected TV platforms, as well as evaluation of the visual user interface for alignment with accessibility best practices. Findings from this review were used to identify current strengths and areas of improvement based on current WCAG 2.2 (Web Compliance Accessibility Guidelines) AA standards, and coupled with feedback from our consultations helped shape the direction of the plan.

External Collaboration

We have engaged with several advocacy groups and experts as part of the development of this plan, and are continuing to set up conversations, presentations, and workshops and to inform our approach.

Prior to the development of this plan, representatives from Paramount+ met with members of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) to seek feedback from the blind and low vision community and to explore opportunities for sustained engagement. The discussion was led by David Greenidge, Director of Operations for CNIB Access Labs, and Monica Enica, a member of the CNIB’s corporate engagement team. The consultation focused on the accessibility of streaming platforms and user experiences for Canadians with vision loss.

David Greenidge emphasized the importance of accessible core features such as closed captioning, color contrast, clearly tagged links, and screen reader compatibility. He stressed the need for users to easily access these features using commonly available interfaces, such as television remote controls. He also highlighted the value of inclusive testing practices, which take into account a variety of assistive technology combinations, including JAWS with Chrome, VoiceOver on Apple devices, and TalkBack on Android.

Monica Enica discussed the limitations of many physical TV remotes for users with vision loss and emphasized the importance of alternative methods of interaction—particularly via smartphones like the iPhone, which many users in the blind community rely on due to its accessibility leadership. The group also discussed the potential benefits of indoor wayfinding technologies, both for blind and low vision users and for individuals who are neurodivergent, as a forward-looking opportunity to support inclusion in public and corporate environments.

This initial conversation provided valuable insight into the expectations and challenges experienced by blind and low vision users in Canada and laid the groundwork for potential long-term collaboration with CNIB to gather ongoing feedback and guidance.

Priority Areas

Employment

Our goal is to ensure that employment at Paramount+ is accessible, inclusive, and supportive for people with disabilities. We’re working to identify and reduce barriers across the employee experience—from recruitment and onboarding to day-to-day work and career growth. We aim to foster a workplace where everyone can contribute fully and feel valued, and we welcome feedback as we continue to improve our practices.

The Built Environment

While many of our team members work remotely, we remain mindful of accessibility in our physical workspaces. Our goal is to ensure that the work environments are accessible, welcoming, and usable for employees and visitors with disabilities. We are committed to identifying and addressing potential barriers as part of our ongoing efforts to support an inclusive workplace in partnership with Paramount Corporate’s facilities management.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Outcome

Ensure that all Paramount+ support resources and public communications are perceivable, operable, and understandable for users with disabilities. We aim to provide complete, helpful information about accessibility features and support, and to make it easy for viewers to contact us with questions, concerns, or feedback.

Where We Are Now

Paramount+’s public-facing support sites include detailed accessibility information:

Internal accessibility reviews have confirmed general compatibility with assistive technology. Exceptions are listed below.

Identified Barriers

Actions

What we’ve done:

What we’re doing:

What we plan to do:

Consultation Insights

Feedback emphasized the importance of clearly labeled controls for turning on captions and descriptions and improving link text clarity and heading structures for screen reader users. 

Communication (other than ICT)

Ensure that all Paramount+ support resources and communications are perceivable, operable, and understandable for users with disabilities. We aim to provide complete, helpful information about accessibility features and support, and to make it easy to contact us with questions, concerns, or feedback.

The Procurement of Goods, Services and Facilities

Ensure that all goods, services, and facilities procured for Paramount+ are perceivable, operable, and understandable for users with disabilities.

The Design and Delivery of Programs and Services

Outcome

Our goal is to ensure that all viewers, including those with disabilities, can access and enjoy Paramount+’s entertainment, news, sports, and lifestyle content. We are committed to providing closed captioning and audio description wherever feasible and expanding that coverage over time. At the same time, we continue to improve the accessibility of our platforms in accordance with recognized accessibility guidelines, ensuring that users can navigate and engage with our services independently and with ease.

Where We Are Now

Paramount+ engages with Applause, an external accessibility testing vendor, to conduct audits of its platforms across web, mobile, and connected TV. These audits include both assistive technology testing and visual interface evaluations.

Paramount+ voluntarily provides closed captioning for virtually all full-length English-language content. Closed captioning is a default requirement, and in the rare circumstances where content is initially delivered without captions, we make best efforts to ensure that this is corrected.

For audio description, Paramount+ makes a concerted effort to request described versions of content from partners when such files are available. Viewers can access information about our audio description features and supported platforms through the Paramount+ support site.

An internal triage process is in place to ensure viewer-reported accessibility issues—particularly those related to captions or audio description—are escalated and resolved in a timely and coordinated manner.

Identified Barriers

Actions

What we’ve done:

What we’re doing:

What we plan to do:

Canadian users emphasized the importance of responsive support for captioning issues and requested greater availability of audio described content across a broader range of genres, including reality, sports, and news.

Transportation

We list it in this Plan as acknowledgment of its importance as part of the Accessible Canada Act, but the topic is largely outside the scope of Paramount+’s mandate. When and where transportation plans arise as part of our business operations, we will prioritize the ease of accessibility for persons with disabilities as part of our transportation procurement.

Regulatory Conditions

As required by section 42(1) of the ACA, we have set out the following applicable conditions and provisions:

Conclusion

We believe we can make a real difference for persons with disabilities by addressing the barriers described in our Accessibility Plan. We are motivated by the opportunity to improve accessibility for our employees, and to do our part to realize a barrier-free Canada.

As we implement our plan, we will continue to work and consult with persons with disabilities. We will publish an updated Accessibility Plan every three years and communicate updates by publishing interim progress reports every year in between, in accordance with the ACA.

Appendix A – ACA Section 6, Principles

In preparing this Accessibility Plan, we have taken into account the principles set out in section 6 of the ACA:

(a) all persons must be treated with dignity regardless of their disabilities;

(b) all persons must have the same opportunity to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have regardless of their disabilities;

(c) all persons must have barrier-free access to full and equal participation in society, regardless of their disabilities;

(d) all persons must have meaningful options and be free to make their own choices, with support if they desire, regardless of their disabilities;

(e) laws, policies, programs, services and structures must take into account the disabilities of persons, the different ways that persons interact with their environments and the multiple and intersecting forms of marginalization and discrimination faced by persons;

(f) persons with disabilities must be involved in the development and design of laws, policies, programs, services and structures; and

(g) the development and revision of accessibility standards and the making of regulations must be done with the objective of achieving the highest level of accessibility for persons with disabilities.

Appendix B – Regulatory Conditions

Conditions imposed under section 9.1 of the Broadcasting Act that relate to the identification and removal of barriers and the prevention of new barriers

No conditions apply at the present time.

Provisions of any order made under subsection 9(4) of the Broadcasting Act that relate to the identification and removal of barriers and the prevention of new barriers.

No orders apply at the present time.

Provisions of any regulations made under subsection 10(1) of the Broadcasting Act that relate to the identification and removal of barriers and the prevention of new barriers

No regulations have been made at the present time.