Faces of CSC: Tony Walby
August 9, 2024
Information Technology Technical Advisor, Application Configuration and Accessibility Team, National Headquarters, Ottawa
“We are actually limiting ourselves to the talent pool that we could have by not doing the work to make things accessible. It's the law and it's becoming the standard, and it's just the right thing to do.”
Tony Walby started at Correctional Service Canada (CSC) in 1998, as a database administrator. In 2006, his eyesight began deteriorating and Tony was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease. By 2010, his vision had declined significantly. He began to worry about his job. None of the digital applications he was working with were accessible.
Tony’s knowledge and skills were of value to CSC, and his manager didn’t want to lose him. They acquired some tools to help him do his job, but Tony says, “It was a very frustrating, very difficult process.”
In 2017, his director asked him to come up with a way to test applications and make them accessible. So, Tony and a student started to build a digital tool to identify accessible web and digital applications used at CSC. This was the genesis of the Accessibility Centre of Expertise, a platform that tests all of CSC’s applications to see if they meet accessibility standards and tracks their compliance. Tony’s team also works to help employees understand what accessibility is and what the standard and legislation is.
A huge part of that accessibility is making documents and websites readable to anyone-with or without sight. Screen readers are critical to this. They read the text aloud as the person follows the page. Alternative (alt) text is essential with written descriptions of images, charts, or graphs, so sight-impaired individuals like Tony can hear what the image is.
He notes that during the pandemic when people were ordering groceries online, the alt text for many photos on store websites had insufficient alt text. Often just the word ‘vegetable’ was the only text provided. So, people relying on screen readers didn’t know if they were ordering carrots or potatoes.
More than six million Canadians have a disability. Accessibility requirements in government have been around since 2010 but making it a legal commitment to have barrier-free services, workplaces, and communities happened in 2019 with the Accessible Canada Act. The goal is for all Government of Canada related entities-departments, agencies, and crown corporations- to be fully accessible by 2040.
Tony’s team was up for the challenge.
“We built the tool that will help us test web applications for the Government of Canada’s accessibility standard,” says Tony. He notes the standalone tool his team developed is now used by Environment Canada and the Immigration Review Board. Tony says CSC is leading the way in web application accessibility compliance and plans to be fully accessible by 2028.
Tony, in blue, competing at the 2012 Paralympic Games in London, England, in his first round versus France.
Competition is in Tony’s blood. He has competed on the national judo team since he was 16. In 2008, at age 35, he retired from able-bodied judo when he was declared legally blind. He continued in the sport, doing high performance coaching and training.
But Tony still had a competitive edge. In 2010, he joined the para-judo visually impaired team, and competed in the 2011 World Championships, 2011 Pan American Games (where he took a bronze medal), and the 2012 and 2016 Paralympic Games.
Tony retired after the Paralympic Games and no longer competes in the fighting side of the martial art. However, he still trains and competes at the world level in judo kata, pre-arranged patterns of attack and defence that are scored by judges.
“I’m the only blind person in the world competing at that level in this discipline.”
Last year, Tony and his partner placed 12th.
“I can't actually see what I'm doing, but it’s fun,” says Tony. “I rely more on my memory.”
In 2021, Tony became the first Canadian blind person to become a sixth-degree black belt.
For his day job, he is proud that, “The guy with the disability at CSC is the guy in charge of Information and Communication Technology accessibility.”
There is another vision-impaired colleague on the team (also a former Paralympian in swimming). The rest of Tony’s 10-member team are able-bodied. All are equally passionate about accessibility and removing barriers in the workplace.
Tony talks about the importance of accessibility with so much of our daily interactions at work and at home being online with computers and cell phones.
“When it comes to daily tasks, whether it's financial, whether it's grocery shopping, whether it's pretty much anything, if that's not accessible, you're excluding a number of the population.”
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