The 2040 target.
Canada has set out to be barrier-free by 2040. The population the target exists for is growing faster than the barriers are coming down.
CometX · September 2026 · Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0
The number that matters
27%
of Canadians aged 15 and over — 8.0 million people — had one or more disabilities in 2022, up five percentage points from 2017. Roughly 1.8 million more people than five years earlier.[1]
A target, and a trend running against it
The Accessible Canada Act sets out to make Canada barrier-free by 1 January 2040.[3] Fourteen years out, the population the Act exists for is growing faster than the barriers are coming down.
In 2022, 27% of Canadians aged 15 and over — 8.0 million people — had one or more disabilities, up five percentage points from 22% in 2017. In absolute terms that is roughly 1.8 million more people than five years earlier. Statistics Canada attributes the rise partly to population ageing and partly to a large increase in mental health-related disabilities among youth and working-age adults.[1]
The distribution matters for employers. Among people aged 25 to 64, 24.1% had a disability in 2022, up 4.1 points from 2017.[3] Disability is more common among women (30%) than men (24%), and the largest gaps between women and men appear in the youngest age groups.[4]
The employment gap has narrowed, slightly
Among working-age adults aged 25 to 64, 62% of people with disabilities were employed in 2022, against 78% of people without — a gap of 16 percentage points. That gap narrowed by five points since 2017, with the employment rate for people with disabilities up three points.[2]
Severity changes the picture sharply. Among people aged 25 to 64, 74% of those with milder disabilities were employed, against 42% of those with more severe disabilities.[2] Employed people with disabilities were also more likely to work part time — 16% against 13%.[2]
| Measure | With disability | Without | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Employment rate, 25–64 (2022 CSD) | 62% | 78% | CSD 2022[2] |
| Employment rate, more severe disability, 25–64 | 42% | — | CSD 2022[2] |
| Working part time, employed 25–64 | 16% | 13% | CSD 2022[2] |
| Average hourly earnings, 2023 | $31.95 | $33.86 | LFS 2023[3] |
The two surveys use different definitions and reference periods, so the rows are not directly comparable with one another.
Then the trend stalled
Labour Force Survey data for 2023 show the employment rate among people with a disability holding steady at 47.1%, while employment among people without disabilities fell from 67.7% to 66.9% as their population grew faster than jobs did.[3]
A narrowing gap produced by one side falling rather than the other rising is not progress toward a barrier-free country. It is the same distance, measured on a lower floor.
Read the rates carefully
The 62% and the 47.1% in this report are not contradictory and should not be quoted together as though they were. The first is the Canadian Survey on Disability, ages 25 to 64. The second is the Labour Force Survey, a different instrument with a different age range and reference period.[2][3] Comparing across the two is one of the most common errors in disability employment reporting.
What employers are actually required to do
In Ontario, the AODA employment standard is not a hiring quota. It requires accessible recruitment, informing employees of available supports, accessible formats and communication supports on request, individualised workplace emergency response information, and — for organizations with 50 or more employees — documented individual accommodation plans and a return-to-work process.[5]
Employers with 50 or more employees must also account for accessibility in performance management, career development and redeployment.[5] That is the provision most often missed, and it is the one that determines whether someone who is hired can actually advance.
The digital layer
Barriers are not only physical. In February 2026, 95.9% of the top one million home pages had detectable WCAG 2 failures, up from 94.8% a year earlier.[6] A recruitment process that runs through an inaccessible careers page has excluded candidates before any accommodation conversation begins.
Canadian sites are somewhat better than the global picture — .ca domains averaged 36.0 errors against 56.1 across the sample — but "better than a population where 95.9% fail" is a low bar.[6]
What this report does not establish
- Causation. Nothing here shows that accessible employment practice causes employment gains. These are population statistics, not an evaluation.
- Provincial detail. The employment figures are national. Ontario-specific rates are not broken out in the sources used.
- What "barrier-free by 2040" means operationally. The Act sets a direction; it does not define a measurable end state that these indicators map onto.[3]
- The digital and employment data are separate. We have placed them side by side because both bear on access to work. No source links them statistically.
Sources
Every figure above comes from one of these. All were retrieved and read in September 2026, and each link goes to the primary publisher rather than to a summary.
- 1
- 2Statistics Canada. Accessibility in Canada: results from the 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability. The Daily, 28 May 2024. ↩
- 3Statistics Canada. Labour market characteristics of persons with and without disabilities, 2023. Catalogue 71-222-X, released 13 June 2024. ↩
- 4Statistics Canada. A demographic, employment and income profile of persons with disabilities aged 15 years and over in Canada, 2022. Catalogue 89-654-X. ↩
- 5Government of Ontario. Accessibility rules for businesses and non-profits. Employment standard obligations. Updated 16 June 2026. ↩
- 6