Transport Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Please provide a short answer.

[Mark Kuess]

I would refer to their annual statement. I would also include Glasgow Airport and refer to their annual statement. You'll see that business is good. Things are growing. The business community is very happy.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much to our witnesses. You started off our study. I'm sure we'll be in touch with you as we progress.

I will suspend for a few moments while we change witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

I'll call this meeting back to order.

We have Chris Isaac as well as Julia Jovanovic, Ph.D. candidate, University of Windsor.

From Terranova International Public Safety Canada, we have James Castle and Priscilla Tang.

Mr. Isaac, you have five minutes and then we'll cut you off so the committee can get to their questions and comments.

Thank you very much.

[Chris Isaac, As an Individual]

Thank you.

You know my name. It's written here. I've lived in the city of Laval for 20 years. I've lived in different areas of the city. In recent years, the noise from airplanes flying over our homes has increased. I've noticed this more since I became a consultant and I have the option of working from home. The noise is unacceptable. Laval is a suburb of Montreal. We purchase homes in Laval to live in peace and quiet, but we're not finding this in the city.

Airport management has been privatized for the next 60 years. I gather that all the companies involved, such as NAV CANADA and ADM, couldn't care less about the public.

At this time, airplanes must climb to 1,000 m before they can make a turn. That's what they do. When airplanes reach this altitude, they're 10 km from Dorval airport, so they turn directly over us. Since the airplanes are climbing, the manouevre is performed at maximum thrust. According to my noise level surveys, the noise increases to 65 decibels and sometimes reaches 80 decibels. Laval is a quiet suburb where regulations are supposed to limit noise to 55 decibels. However, the noise level is often above this standard. This prevents us from making full use of our yard in the summer. Even in the colder seasons, when the windows are closed, we still hear all the rumbling. All the accompanying sounds enter the house. I don't want to be forced to build a bunker to escape the noise. I don't see any other solutions at this point.

We had a meeting with NAV CANADA and ADM. They seemed to care on the surface. They told us that they wanted to help us and to resolve the issues. However, we received a letter containing contradictory information. As you'll see in the appendices that will be handed out to you, the number of flights, the flight altitude and the flight schedule are indicated. Some flights are also late in the evening or at night. There are more and more flights. The number of flights is increasing at a rate of 7% a year. That's a huge amount of traffic. For people who live in the suburbs, this is completely unacceptable. I feel very sorry for all the people who live in Montreal and who endure this at an even more severe level. However, that's Montreal. I don't know the solution for Montreal, but we must find solutions for Laval.

NAV CANADA isn't listening. Minister Garneau also wrote a letter that doesn't show any willingness to take action. I'm very surprised that a government has no oversight over private companies. I don't think that's true. I think that the government has oversight over everything happening in communities and in the country. In the appendices, you'll also find the letter from Mr. Garneau and other statistics. Whenever the winds come from the northeast or east, airplanes take off and fly over our area. Laval isn't part of Montreal. Laval doesn't benefit in any way from the economic impact of the airport.

I heard another witness talk about Mirabel and call it a white elephant. That's all well and good, but I used to use the airport back in the day, and it worked well. The decision to move flights from Mirabel to Dorval to be closer to Montreal was a business decision.

I want to thank the committee for working to ensure that citizens are respected. I hope that this will lead somewhere.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Mr. Castle or Ms. Tang, whoever wants to make the presentation.

[James Castle, President, Terranova International Public Safety Canada (Terranova Aerospace)]

Ms. Tang will be doing it.

[Priscilla Tang, Senior Vice-President, Terranova International Public Safety Canada (Terranova Aerospace)]

Thank you, and good morning, Chair and members of the committee.

My name is Priscilla Tang, and I am senior vice-president of Terranova Aerospace. Allow me to introduce to you James Castle, president of Terranova Aerospace.

Thank you for conducting the study on assessing the impact of aircraft noise in the vicinity of major Canadian airports. Thank you for the opportunity to present to you our witness statement. You have asked us to speak to this topic and any relevant issues of importance.

Improving flight safety in Canada is of national importance. Improving flight safety, as it pertains to all aircraft, remotely piloted aircraft systems, unmanned aerial vehicles and unmanned aircraft systems commonly known as drones, is of national and international importance. Canada is well positioned to lead in drone industry innovation, economic development and use for public safety.

Drones can be used to save lives. At Terranova Aerospace, we are driven by our purpose to save lives. Everything we do is in alignment with the mandates of Public Safety Canada and designed to strengthen the Canadian infrastructure for emergency management. The drones we use, called the Silent Falcon unmanned aircraft system, are fixed-wing aircraft that span four metres across and fly up to 20,000 feet. They can be used in emergency search and rescue to locate missing persons in weather or terrain conditions such as avalanches, natural disasters and forest fires, which are otherwise not safely accessible by human-piloted helicopters and civil aircraft.

In the United States, our unmanned aerial vehicles are currently being used to help the U.S. government in wild-land fire operations, search and rescue, emergency management, land management and wildlife management.

Drones can assist in the recovery of human remains. When integrated with infrared detection technology and artificial intelligence, drones could pinpoint the location of human remains in Canada's ocean war graves.

Drones are seeing unprecedented levels of global innovation and accessibility. Today, anyone can purchase a drone at their local electronics retailer or online, and suddenly our airspace has become accessible to the common citizen and not just to pilots.

We at Terranova Aerospace are currently developing a scalable data solution similar to that of Google Maps or Waze, which integrates artificial intelligence, blockchain and big data to chart the Canadian airspace for the common user. In the same way drivers can open up an app on their smart phone and get directions, traffic and safety information on reaching their destination, we plan to build the same publicly accessible capabilities for common users of our airspace.

Finally, drones make up an inevitable economic development opportunity for Canada. With the right regulations in place to ensure that all aircraft, unmanned or not, are tracked and operating safely, Canada could become a world leader in industry development and benefit from its economic prosperity.

Work with us, Terranova Aerospace, and we can be your partner in developing and maximizing the potential of this opportunity for Canada to lead in drones for public safety, innovation and economic prosperity.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for allowing us to present.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We'll move to Ms. Jovanovic.

[Julia Jovanovic, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Windsor, As an Individual]

Good morning. My name is Julia Jovanovic, and I am part of a research team from the University of Windsor in Ontario.

My team and I are working on a collaborative project with the GTAA, analyzing the effects of aircraft noise on airport-neighbouring communities. Our main focus is aircraft noise annoyance.

Today I am here to brief the committee on the importance of studying aircraft noise annoyance nationwide, as well as to present recent findings on the topic that may inform any such efforts.

In addition, I would like to urge competent authorities to perform location-specific epidemiological studies that monitor objective health indicators for affected individuals, in order to determine with certainty the relative health risks associated with different levels of aircraft noise exposure.

Annoyance is the most common effect of community noise and is considered an adverse health effect by the World Health Organization. In recent years, it has gained much attention, as it is no longer viewed only as the most likely health outcome of environmental noise, but also as a significant modifying factor contributing to risks of other health outcomes.

Results from annoyance surveys form the basis for noise exposure thresholds, regulations and noise mitigation efforts. Thus, any initiative seeking to lessen the effects of aircraft noise on individuals must ultimately strive to reduce noise annoyance and, by way of that, mitigate other health effects, as well.

Trends are emerging in recent studies identifying that transportation noise annoyance is on the rise. More people are expressing high levels of annoyance at lower noise exposure levels than ever before. Among transportation sources, aircraft noise is perceived as the most annoying. With forecasts for continual capacity increases across major airports worldwide and a trend of increasing aircraft noise annoyance, it has never been more critical to study the issue at length in efforts to find solutions to mitigate and manage it.

Given the critical importance of annoyance, it is essential that the issue be studied at length while keeping in mind a few very important considerations. One, noise mitigation and noise annoyance mitigation are not one and the same. This is an important distinction, as there are examples of noise mitigation efforts that have not reaped the benefits of significantly reduced noise annoyance, most notably the Frankfurt nighttime ban. Two, annoyance is a complex psychological and sociological phenomenon that cannot be simply and precisely predicted nor regulated through a dosage-response relationship.

As a brief side note, a dosage-response relationship is a tool commonly used to predict annoyance. Essentially it uses a curve derived from annoyance data correlated with modelled noise exposure levels to state that, at any given noise exposure level, a certain percentage of the population will be highly annoyed. To simply explain this, it is like trying to predict how individuals nationwide will feel about the weather when you're only provided with an outdoor temperature. While temperature is a key indicator, it is not sufficient to make the assumption that people will be comfortable. Other factors are relevant, and maybe even more telling, for example, precipitation, relative humidity, location, individual preferences and so on.

Similarly, the highly subjective response of annoyance cannot be simply predicted by overall noise exposure—how loud an environment is. Other critical acoustic and non-acoustic considerations must be explored, for example, the sound quality, background noise levels, attitudes toward the noise source and/or authorities, coping capacities, individual noise sensitivity and more. It is vital that both acoustic and non-acoustic factors be considered in the study of annoyance. A thorough understanding of non-acoustic contributors to annoyance may reveal novel approaches to its mitigation.

Finally, Canada is in need of a proper revision and verification of current noise exposure and noise annoyance metrics and thresholds, as these are not only severely outdated, but they have never been corroborated through Canadian annoyance survey results. This is a necessary step in order to ensure that existing noise abatement policy serves its purpose.

Thank you for your time, and I welcome any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Ms. Block.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and I thank our witnesses for joining us today.

This is the very first meeting in which we are studying and assessing the impact of aircraft noise in the vicinity of major Canadian airports. Already we've begun to understand that this is a very complex issue and that there are no easy answers. In the last panel my colleague did a great job of highlighting the tension between competing values, often between the public at large, communities, travellers and businesses.

I do welcome the testimony you have provided.

I want to ask a question of Terranova International Public Safety Canada.

Can remotely piloted aircraft systems technology offer any solutions to aviation noise concerns?

[James Castle]

Yes, absolutely. When the Silent Falcon aircraft flies a hundred feet above a populated area or any area that is regulated, it has virtually no sound. So, the aspect of avoidance of any type of aircraft noise is clearly not a.... It would not happen.

The only types of variances that you would have, as drones become more popular in Canada and people are flying them around disaster areas, forest fires and so on.... They also come off airports, and they can do a lot of damage to aircraft on the ground as well as aircraft taking off.

To return to the question, the sounds from these are virtually zero, from any distance, during takeoff, in the air and in the approach. So if these are being utilized under emergency management guidelines for providing search and rescue or any other efforts, you're not talking about an extended period of sound. RPAS can fly for five hours, and with a current agreement with DARPA, we're looking at developing them so they can stay up indefinitely.

The importance of the sound interruption is going to be a key model with what we're doing.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Jovanovic, I appreciated your testimony. You may have answered my question in your opening remarks, but I want to frame it in a different way and perhaps give you an opportunity to expand on it.

We know that Canada's major airports across the country are situated in very diverse locations. What local factors should be taken into account when developing strategies to mitigate aviation noise?

[Julia Jovanovic]

Thank you for asking the question.

As you mentioned at the beginning, it's a very complex topic. There are numerous factors that should be considered, and they're very location-specific, so it is critical that studies be executed in the locations where you seek to propose certain mitigation measures. Factors can vary between demographics—the types of housing, the type of area, the type of neighbourhood, the levels of ambient noise that you have present in the neighbourhood.

Mr. Isaac brought up the point in his opening remarks that in certain neighbourhoods, you have relatively low ambient noise, so any type of overflight would cause a significant disturbance, whereas a more dense urban environment, where ambient noise is in excess of 40 decibels, an overflight might not be perceived as a disturbance.

Any study should be location-specific. It should look at any personal or attitudinal or cultural factors that relate to that specific location. Data have shown that there is significant variance between surveys that are done in different regions.

I hope I've answered your question.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Absolutely. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

We're moving to Mr. Iacono.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here and for giving their presentations.

Mr. Isaac, thank you for coming from Laval. You're a citizen from my constituency.

Call you tell the committee about your experience with the noise of airplanes that fly over your home? You've already explained it to me, but can you tell the committee what you did over the summer to determine the trajectory of the airplanes?

[Chris Isaac]

In summer at home, we go outside and use our swimming pool. However, if we're having a conversation and an airplanes passes by, we're forced to stop the conversation and wait until the plane is far enough away to continue talking. We hear the airplanes for the entire time that they take to pass by, and not just when they fly over the house. We hear them coming, and when they fly over the house, we really hear a roar. Since we don't want to shout at the top of our lungs to talk to each other, we stop our conversations and wait until the airplane has flown away to continue talking. All these airplanes come to make a turn near us, then head west to Toronto, Alberta, Vancouver or another location.

The noise is unacceptable, especially in a community where people care about noise. We monitor the noise that we make. For example, people who have dogs must prevent them from barking, or we don't take our sound systems outside.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

How long have you been analyzing the aircraft noise issue? How has the issue evolved?

[Chris Isaac]

I've been analyzing the issue for at least four years. The issue must have existed in past, but since I was often on the road or travelling, I didn't notice it as much. In fact, I was using airplanes. However, I could never have imaged that they would make me suffer so much.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

Which types of aircraft fly over your home and how often do they do so? You've already told me that you can even determine the types of aircraft. Can you provide more details?

[Chris Isaac]

The aircraft include the entire Airbus series, Boeing 737-7CTs, Bombardier CRJ700s, Embraer ERJ175 SUs and Boeing 737-436s. The companies are Air Canada, the Air Canada Star Alliance network, Air Canada Rouge, Delta Connection, GoJet, Sunwing, WestJet, and so on. All these airplanes pass over my house.

[Angelo Iacono, Liberal, Alfred-Pellan, QC]

This means that you can very easily see the airplanes that fly over your house.