CAN-ASC-4.1: Accessible Procurement
Scope:
The purpose of CAN-ASC-4.1 is to develop a standard that goes above mandatory minimum technical specifications and produces equity-based technical requirements.
There are common areas where persons with disabilities may experience barriers to accessibility in procurement. Such barriers can prevent the full participation of people with disabilities including both employees and clients. These areas include:
· The goods and services purchased or leased are not accessible.
· There is a lack of flexibility throughout the procurement process. This can affect, for example, the Government of Canada employees purchasing the goods and services and the vendors selling them.
· The bidding and evaluation criteria are inaccessible. This can prevent people with disabilities from participating in bid processes (competitive and non-competitive).
· The procurement-related communications and documents are not in accessible or alternate formats.
The standard will address these barriers by establishing the following:
· accessibility criteria for purchasing and leasing goods and services
· a procurement process that is accessible, both for the employee responsible for the purchase and the bidder (vendor)
· requirements for including suppliers that show they are committed to including people with disabilities in the procurement process.
This standard will align with the technical requirements of other Accessibility Standards Canada standards. These include:
· CAN-ASC-1.1: Employment
· CAN-ASC-5.2: Accessible Design and Delivery of Programs and Services
· CAN-ASC-6.1: Information and Communication Technology.
Project need:
Accessibility Standards Canada was created under the Accessible Canada Act. Its mandate is to prevent, identify, and remove barriers to accessibility for Canadians with disabilities. In pursuit of this mandate, Accessibility Standards Canada develops standards based on the needs of people with disabilities. These needs have been identified in consultations with Canadians with disabilities, including the Governor in Council appointed Board of Directors, who are primarily people with disabilities and have approved the development of this standard.
Accessibility Standards Canada’s standards apply to federally-regulated entities, including the federally regulated private-sector, as defined within the Accessible Canada Act. Accessibility Standards Canada also works with Provincial and Territorial partners to identify additional stakeholder needs across Canada in order to increase harmonization.
In addition to these identified needs, Accessibility Standards Canada standards are developed following the principle of “nothing without us”. This means that Accessibility Standards Canada standards are developed with research that has been led by people with disabilities or lived experience, participation of people with disabilities on our technical committees and produce equity-based requirements that take into account the needs and perspectives of people with disabilities. This also means that the public review process for this standard will be accessible, allowing even more people with disabilities to be part of the standards development process.
Note: The information provided above was obtained by the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) and is provided as part of a centralized, transparent notification system for new standards development. The system allows SCC-accredited Standards Development Organizations (SDOs), and members of the public, to be informed of new work in Canadian standards development, and allows SCC-accredited SDOs to identify and resolve potential duplication of standards and effort.
Individual SDOs are responsible for the content and accuracy of the information presented here. The text is presented in the language in which it was provided to SCC.