Proposed Meeting Types with Accessibility Features

Always ensure that accommodation requests are done ahead of time, and apply all accessibility features necessary based on the known audience or based on the accommodation requests that were done. If you have no way of knowing the needs of your participants, then you should provide as many accommodations as possible and you will need to secure official language interpretation (English – French), if you expect to have both languages spoken during the event. Depending on language profiles of the audience and the language of the meeting, then official language interpretation will be required.

Example: an unknown audience with a bilingual meeting will require official language interpretation, and ensure that any necessary Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) and SLI are available in both languages.

Participants who require Sign Language Interpreters (SLI) should have a dedicated screen for the interpreter. Please ensure participants are aware that two screens is recommended so they can plan their set-up prior to the meeting. The temporary SLI workaround for MS Teams is to ensure the required attendees have two separate devices to connect to the meeting, one to view the presentation, and one dedicated view for the SLI.

If there is no protected information and SLI is required then switch to Zoom to avoid this work around. Participants external to the Government of Canada are more likely familiar with and able to use Zoom.

Note: If there is protected information, MS Teams is required to be used.

Meeting Size	Audience: Internal/External	Recommended Meeting Platform
Small	Internal	MS Teams
Small	Internal and External	MS Teams
Large – up to 325 participants	Internal	MS Teams
Large - over 325 participants	Internal	MS Teams (Live events version)
Large - over 325 participants	Internal and External	Zoom (if no protected information)
Consultations with Canadian citizens	External	Zoom (if no protected information)