Transport Committee on Nov. 24th, 2016

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Oh no, in that case, I will not have time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have 30 seconds.

[Robert Aubin, NDP, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Okay, fine.

I wanted to know whether Canada is ahead of the game in this industry or behind. Just now, in your opening remarks, we heard both statements. On one occasion, we were leaders, on another occasion, we were trailing. Where is Canada positioned in this industry?

[Ian Glenn]

In the 30 seconds we have, I think we're falling behind. The U.S. Congress has already drafted language for beyond visual line of sight. They're driven by Google, Facebook, the triumvirate of big commercial folks, and they're moving well beyond us quickly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Mr. Aruja.

[Mark Aruja]

Just to help clarify, our position is that we were the world leaders, and we're exactly as Ian has said. The U.S. in particular, because they're close to us, but France, Australia, the investments by those governments are now pushing us into an uncomfortable position.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you.

Mr. Sikand, for six minutes.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Good morning. Thank you for being here.

My first question is for Ian.

I saw on your website that you sell a product called Serenity. It has eight hours of flight time, five kilograms of payload, is fully autonomous, and is portable in seven cases.

Is that available to the public?

[Ian Glenn]

Yes.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

My concern right off the bat is safety. That's great, but if I ostensibly purchase this and then use it for something else, you could transport narcotics and do worse things. How do we regulate that so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands?

[Ian Glenn]

I had the opportunity to address the parliamentary committee on defence of North America a while back. The reality is, with one million-plus drones flying in North America, that day is past. That ship has sailed, right? We're only talking about capability. You can order what you need from China today and just move on.

Where this plays a role is in allowing us to do things that you couldn't do. For instance, in Ontario, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry asked me to look for moose footprints in the snow. Okay, with 25 square kilometres and at two centimetre resolution, drop your phone in the woods, and we'd find it. That's the kind of work that a drone does. We were selected by the World Food Programme to provide fly-over food security. That's the kind of work that a drone does. You can always find other uses for all these technologies.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Tying that in, is there a way we can mandate that manufacturers somehow geofence these drones or their abilities to stay out of airspace, or our landmarks, or the like?

[Ian Glenn]

Absolutely. I think almost all of these technologies have a geofence capability. Certainly, we use geofencing in both of our products.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you.

Anne-Sophie, I remember being on a plane looking through a magazine and seeing a private recreational plane that actually had a parachute in it. Is there a way we can mandate that the larger drones have a failsafe of a parachute?

[Anne-Sophie Riopel-Bouvier]

Totally. The parachute technology is already available. It may need tweaking, but it could be part of the regulations to have a parachute on board.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Mark, we were leaders, you said, but no longer. How do we get that top spot again?

[Mark Aruja]

I think we do that with visual line of sight with that regulation process going forward. I think there is some good material in there that will set the stage for beyond visual line of sight. We need the approval process to start to get beyond visual line of sight operations out there. Industry is poised to demonstrate that we can effectively monitor pipelines and do the kinds of things that Ian is talking about with environmental survey.

There was an article today about deteriorating ice conditions in the Arctic. All of those things are real. Once you get into the rural communities, there's a whole secondary explosion of economic potential that is available there. Beyond visual line of sight is what we need to do. U.K., France, Australia, all of those jurisdictions, including the U.S. in the last few months, are now enabling those.

Burlington Northern railroad is running these now to monitor their railway infrastructure. That's the Holy Grail. We need to move that forward, but we can't do that without resolute purpose and resources to move that forward. That's in weeks from now. We're not talking about years.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You still have two minutes.

[Gagan Sikand, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

I'd like to pass that time to Vance Badawey.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Go ahead, Mr. Badawey.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Sikand.

I have to say that I do understand and respect as well as appreciate some of the good things the industry is going to provide society in general. It's exciting, quite frankly, but there are some challenges as well. I want to be very clear about that. Those challenges are primarily around public security and public privacy. Not only do I want to question you on that, but I also want to give you my opinion with respect to my expectations of you, as a representative of the industry—not of government; I want to be clear about that—and with that, trying to strike that balance between economy, which is what you're in the business to be and do and obviously prosper, and your responsibility with your product with respect to public safety and public privacy.

On many occasions throughout your presentations, you mentioned the expertise that you do have. With your expertise, what thoughts have you given to ensuring proactive—and I want to emphasize the word proactive. We can have all the regulations we want. We can have all the policing we want, but that's reactive. The incident has already happened. Let's talk about being proactive so the incident doesn't happen.

What thoughts have you given towards being proactive when it comes to public safety and public privacy?

[Mark Aruja]

That's a great question.

We initiated the conversations almost a decade ago with the Privacy Commissioner not only federally, but provincially. Ann Cavoukian, the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario, wrote a seminal piece called “Privacy by Design”. That was the forerunner to how you build geofencing technology in there, so that the technology doesn't allow you to do things that would impact on privacy or those kinds of issues. We engaged early and proactively, she said.

We represent the professional industry. Those are seminal issues for us, because if we don't have social licence to operate, then we'll fail our businesses. We have in our best practices that when you operate, you wear a vest that's visible that says who you are. If you're operating near someone's property, before you go and operate, you go and talk to those folks and tell them what you're going to be doing. Give them your business card if they have any concerns. That is the way the industry operates.

There is a real concern on the recreational side, for sure. The differentiation between normal aircraft and drones, quite frankly, is they have a camera on them.

You did get testimony on Tuesday from a privacy lawyer that the camera on these recreational drones has a really wide field of view. In fact, most of them have lower performance than what's in your cellphone. The reality of what you can actually do is that you can't do much. There's a perception out there and that is the social licence. To that end, we as an industry have an extremely proactive understanding that this is an issue that we have to address and we believe we've done so.

[Vance Badawey, Liberal, Niagara Centre, ON]

Do I have time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Yes. You were the next speaker so we'll roll two minutes from Mr. Sikand on to your time.