Good morning. I'm Ian Glenn, CEO of ING Robotic Aviation.
This is my 20th year in the UAV business. In 1996, the Canadian Army entrusted me with their UAV program, and I've been engaged with UAVs since then. I've also been engaged with Transport Canada since then. This is the year when I'm looking for Transport Canada to give me the gold watch.
We have not moved forward far enough fast enough. Mark's done a great job of illustrating where we stand today. Where we stand today is, we have failed to keep up with the rest of the world. We were leading, and due to resourcing and focus of Transport Canada on this sector, we have failed to the point where companies are now not looking to Canada but to the U.S. to move their businesses.
That said, there is a way forward for Canada in particular. The first slide I show you is really what the trillion-dollar question is here. It's not about the unmanned aircraft industry. It's about Canada's inability to safely and effectively move product to tidewater. This is a place where robotic aircraft have a great place to play where we can demonstrate to the world that we are safe and effective in reducing greenhouse gases in moving our products to the world.
Most of these products actually transition through first nations lands. I'm one of the first to have taught first nations how to safely fly UAVs. There's a great opportunity in Canada for us to move forward.
On the second slide, which is the one with the picture of the plane and the UAV, there is a technology available today that will address part, if not all, of the challenges faced by Transport Canada and the country. That's a little technology called a transponder, and they are tiny little devices today. Manned aviation uses this type of technology all the time. This is ICAO-approved technology for big planes. We find in 2016 that this is now small and useable technology that every drone could be equipped with.
What does that mean to us? If we think of last week, we had Porter thinking they saw a drone—probably a weather balloon—just because of where it was, but they didn't know. Our airline pilots are spooked by the whole drone phenomenon. There are more unmanned aircraft flying in Canada today than manned aircraft. By Christmas this year, there will be two and a half million drones flying in North America. Remember, we only have 33,000 registered aircraft in Canada. There's a technology that will allow us to work with this. I call this little device, of which there are many manufacturers, the seat belt of 2016. How do we effectively let everyone know where drones are? That's the point I would make.
I've been on every CARAC working committee for 20 years. There are three things we need to do as a country to move this forward rapidly.
Number one, if you're going to fly beyond visual line of sight—and this is where the money is; this is the reason we come to work—we have a thing called a compliant operator. That means you look, smell, and taste like an aviation company, and so you have to have all the safety management processes, and you have all of those things you have to do. If you just go to Best Buy and pick up a drone, you have a lot to learn, and that's important.
Number two, we need compliance systems. We have developed all of those regulations through the CARAC process that basically say, “You look and work like an aviation asset, an aircraft.” That's important.
Number three, we need to tell each other where we are. A “no drones” sign on the fence at the airport isn't cutting it. You know, the education program.... You can tweet all day long; it doesn't really cut it. We need to use a bit of technology and enforce it, not just for unmanned aviation, but for manned aviation as well, and the expense is not high.
The fourth slide speaks to a thought I have about how we can do this and keep everybody happy, because we're Canadians. Most of the work that we want to do in Canada is not over the GTA or downtown Ottawa; it's out over the woods.
I have a team up past Cochrane, Timmins, flying magnetometer surveys for De Beers today, in the snow. That's where we need to be flying. I could be much more cost-effective, much more efficient, if I were able to operate beyond visual line of sight. If every aircraft in Canada had this technology, that would be a great risk reduction exercise.
The origins of ADS-B were that, in 1999, Alaska adopted it. They immediately saw a 78% decrease in man-on-man accidents. It's a great technology.
Finally, we have this ability today, technologically, to move forward. I have certainly made the suggestion that for our manned aviation folks who prefer not to spend money, they're going to buy it anyway. In the U.S., in two years or three years they're going to have to have this technology to fly down to Fort Lauderdale. What they could do is perhaps make it a tax credit. We're talking about a couple of thousand bucks for equipage.
Good technology recognized in the world would change the equation for Canada and all of our citizens. In particular, when we think of the great white north, wouldn't it be wonderful if our first nations, for instance, who are objecting to moving product to tidewater, had the ability to have high-tech jobs in their own communities to help us ensure that we're moving product well?
Thank you very much.