Evidence of meeting #38 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aircraft.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC
I have one last question.
In preparing some recommendations for the draft report, I tried to categorize drones. You have recreational drones for children. You have drones used by amateur photographers. You have slightly larger beyond-line-of-sight drones. You also have the drones represented by Drone Delivery Canada, which submitted a drone recognition request to NAV CANADA with respect to airlines.
Do those four categories seem adequate to you?
Executive Vice-President, Service Delivery, Nav Canada
It seems to me that the four categories you've just explained cover the majority of drone use that is anticipated, and I think it's probably a great place to start. I think the industry, both the UAV drone manufacturing, operating, and education industry, as well as our regulator Transport Canada, is actively working on being able to manage things safely in those four segments. I think that's probably a good categorization to start.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Thank you very much, and thanks to our witnesses for being here, including remotely.
Quickly, for Nav Canada, I'm interested in your view on the transponders. Should we only be dealing with certain UAVs that should have this kind of transponder, for example, the ones in controlled areas or ones above a certain weight class? The fear I have is that we will be over-regulating, if we're applying it to, essentially, what most people view as toys.
Executive Vice-President, Service Delivery, Nav Canada
It's a good question and it potentially could saturate the transponders out there in the airspace where it's not required. I think that the transponder requirement and hopefully the future transponder requirement will apply to certain types of airspaces, particularly controlled airspace. That's where we're integrating unmanned aerial vehicles and piloted vehicles today. But I think that through rigour when setting regulation going forward, it's a combination of the transponder requirement on the type of UAV, the purpose of the UAV, and the specific operating parameters in the area the UAV would be intended....
In uncontrolled airspace, at low flight levels, it's quite possible that UAVs would not require a transponder and could operate safely within the range of certain altitudes. It's a challenge of mixing all of the factors into regulation that affect not necessarily too much transponder equipage but certainly an adequate amount of transponder equipage as it gets close to controlled airspace that is shared or will be shared with piloted commercial aircraft and piloted private aircraft.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
On the ADS-B equipage that you spoke about, I assume we're talking about a similar issue. You're talking about controlled airspaces and drones that would be used in applications that could potentially interfere with commercial flight patterns.
Executive Vice-President, Service Delivery, Nav Canada
Yes, that is our primary concern.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
While we're on prevention as well, I think we've heard some great testimony from all the witnesses on things like registration, education, licensing, which you mentioned briefly as well. When it comes to other strategies to prevent incidents between users and commercial aircraft, or any aircraft for that matter, we've learned a bit about geofencing. You mentioned potentially investing in geofencing around sensitive areas and certain altitudes.
Are there other preventative measures we could take or more specifics on geofencing that you think we could recommend the government look into?
Executive Vice-President, Service Delivery, Nav Canada
I think the other three, or the other two primarily, are really a clear understanding of where transponders will play a role, but more importantly, I think, the government could take an active role on funding and supporting the stuff that's been stated already around education, and education as to how UAVs can be integrated into uncontrolled airspace and the risks associated with the controlled airspace. It's education and training.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Sure.
One of themes that came out through the previous testimony we heard was that a lot of the problems right now are arising with recreational users accidentally violating regulations like the rule of keeping it so far away from an aerodrome, for example.
We heard at least in one instance that some sort of a non-punitive reporting mechanism would help to encourage people to say, “Look, I made a mistake. My drone battery ran out on an airstrip”, or whatever it might be. Is this a model that you think would be helpful?
Executive Vice-President, Service Delivery, Nav Canada
I think the model exists today. Transport Canada has a reporting system not only to us, through Nav Canada, for the CADORS, but through their own independent reporting system, which is not necessarily punitive, and the aviation culture in Canada is intended to be an open-reporting, just culture in general.
I don't know the specifics of the incidents that are of one severity or another, recreational versus larger drones or malicious potential threats. It's very difficult to ever know that because often, as I mentioned, it's very hard to find the drone or the UAV after it's been located or seen, and the limitations for the authorities prevent a really good capture per se of what the actual incident may have been caused by.
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
Again, educating the general public and the users of drones for recreational or commercial purposes on this reporting mechanism that exists today would be a good approach.
Executive Vice-President, Service Delivery, Nav Canada
Yes, educating the users, the operators, and the public, and specific education for our authorities would be most valuable as well.
Liberal
Liberal
Sean Fraser Liberal Central Nova, NS
It's not going to be enough.
Are there other tools just on the enforcement piece that you mentioned that we could recommend the government adopt to help prevent accidents or capture malicious users?
Executive Vice-President, Service Delivery, Nav Canada
Yes, technology is a wonderful thing. I'm not sure when it will be before we have technology on drone detection. Maybe my colleagues here, who are on the academic side, know of such a thing, but drone detection, if it exists or when it exists, would be of value.
NDP
Robert Aubin NDP Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to take advantage of your expertise in order to improve my own knowledge.
All of you talked about safety with respect to the use of drones, whether for recreational or commercial purposes. The first question I'd like to ask you all is in relation to the next step we will be taking. Do you believe in drone manufacturing companies regulating themselves?
In recent years, we've seen a trend towards self-regulation, especially in the transportation industry. As far as drones are concerned, do you think self-regulation could work, or do you think the government should be responsible for regulating the sector?
Perhaps you could answer my question in the same order you followed for your presentations.
Executive Vice-President, Service Delivery, Nav Canada
Potentially, there is room for some self-regulation on the manufacturing side in terms of what is equipped on a standard manufactured drone. However, the operation of a drone, or UAV specifically, could also have a blended approach. As it pertains to commercial activities and as it pertains to controlled airspace, we've had great success with Transport Canada as a regulator. We need to continue to follow government regulations as they pertain to safety, because that is the concern here. This is not a concern of economics; it's about public safety.
That being said, in uncontrolled airspace, in certain areas that can be very well depicted in this country, a recreational self-regulated system could work with maybe minor oversight from the federally regulated operating criteria.
Prof. Hugh Liu
The answer is yes to both sides. In the traditional aviation industry, we always have regulations from government agencies to protect, and that are in the best interests of safety. Self-regulation for manufacturing not only will improve the product but it's also to the industry manufacturers' interests to ensure their UAVs and drones will be reliable and safe in operation. They don't want to see their brands or products in any accident on the news.
Prof. Kamran Behdinan
In terms of self-regulation, it's a very good idea that these manufacturers of drones should provide evidence that the drones have been designed to meet certain objectives. It is not just about manufacturing; they have to also provide evidence of their design, the analysis that they have performed, and if it fits the requirements of the design, their ultimate role.
Overall, this whole practice is going to help put in very safe practices in terms of the operation of the drone later on.
