AODA, short for the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, is Ontario's law requiring businesses and public organizations to make their services accessible to people with disabilities, and that includes their websites. For the web specifically, AODA points at the WCAG guidelines and sets WCAG 2.0 Level AA as the standard a covered organization's site is expected to meet. (The law names version 2.0; current builds usually target the newer 2.2 at the same AA level, which more than covers it.) In plain terms: if you are a larger Ontario business, a public-sector body, or an organization that wants to win government and institutional contracts, your website is supposed to be usable by someone relying on a screen reader or navigating by keyboard, and AA is the line. This is why I treat accessibility as part of the build rather than an extra. For an Ontario client, it is not only the right thing to do for visitors, it is a legal expectation and, increasingly, a question on the procurement form. AODA is the law; WCAG is the technical standard the law leans on to define what "accessible" actually means. Meeting WCAG AA is how you satisfy what AODA asks of a website.
Glossary entry