Clipping the Wings of a New Industry
Canada’s recreational drone rules overreach - Visualized
Earlier this month, the Canadian government announced new restrictions on recreational drone use (although as we’ll see later, the effects go beyond recreational uses).
The key feature of the new rules is the ban on flying within nine kilometres of somewhere aircraft take off or land. The actual rule is “closer than nine km from the centre of an aerodrome (any airport, heliport, seaplane base or anywhere that aircraft take-off and land)”. What does this actually mean?
I was able to pull location data (web scraping to the rescue) for all the aerodromes in Canada, and visualize the 9km exclusion areas created by the new rules. You can try the map for yourself — find the link at the end of the post.
There are almost 2000 aerodromes in Canada. When you add up all those 9km circles, what’s left?
In Metro Vancouver, nothing:
Island of Montreal, Nothing:
Toronto:
Waterloo, not quite as bad but Waterloo and Kitchener proper are still completely no-fly:
Calgary:
You get the picture!
The drone restrictions announced have the practical effect of banning recreational drone use for the vast majority of the Canadian population.
Impacts beyond recreation: Our next generation of companies
The effects of a de-facto recreational ban are not just felt in recreational uses. Drones and their applications, like many emerging technologies, are powered by a combo of smartphone-derived computing and battery components with software.
Software developers and entrepreneurs make the software that makes those applications go — and in a Canada that is 82% urbanized (2015), software developers are more concentrated in cities than most Canadians. No-fly means no-build for developers with ideas. That’s unfortunate, because a developer with an idea is the way tech companies, including today’s tech giants, get built today — and the global drone market size will reach USD$6 billion in 2017, with even greater value created in the applications of these drones.
Parts of the government have recognized that in the tech sector today, this is how companies are created. In recent years new federal programs to support startups such as the Canada Accelerator and Incubator Program (CAIP) funding, the Venture Capital Action Plan, and Canada’s Start-up Visa Program have shown serious efforts to promote Canadian tech. This support has helped speed the growth of Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal as globally recognized centres for software startups.
However the new de-facto drone ban shows that this perspective on growing Canadian opportunity in tech is not shared equally across the government. Transport Canada we’re looking at you.
A technologist setting out to create new uses for drones could:
- Look at the Drone Ban Map, make the rational calculation, and apply their skills to greener pastures
- Take their chances and violate the regulations (nobody should do this— as absurd and overreaching as the new rules are) in areas that common sense, and Transport Canada’s rules of a month ago, assess as safe, or
- Take their idea and build it somewhere else like the US or Asia.
Why not use the commercial rules exemption some may ask? Simply comply with the 61 conditions of the commercial exemption, including notifying the Minister in writing, and ante up $100,000 liability insurance.
While many of the conditions are simply burdensome, the liability insurance requirement ends the discussion for the typical technologist with an idea.
The drone ban is regulation that has been created with no thought to balancing its benefits and costs.
Ben Thompson reduced the task and the importance of striking this balance to its essence:
No one will argue with the benefits of regulations: they are very easy to articulate; what is far more difficult to calculate, though, are the costs. Oh sure, governments do try to calculate them, but the costs they calculate are [the] concrete ones that can be measured. It is the opportunity costs — the ideas and businesses that are never tried — that are truly expensive.
— Ben Thompson, Stratechery update, March 8, 2017 (paywall, but worth it)
Drone exclusions before and after March 16, 2017
Under the prior rules, anybody flying a drone in an unsafe manner could already face fines up to $25K and jail time.
- June 13, 2016: “Anyone who operates a drone in a reckless and negligent manner, violates controlled or restricted airspace; or endangers the safety of manned aircraft could face fines of up to $25,000 and/or jail time.” — Transport Canada
The key differences now:
- A drone operator faces stiff fines even when not flying in an unsafe manner
- The areas off limits have been expanded so broadly (the 9km aerodrome exclusion) as to effectively ban drone use for most Canadians
What would reasonable drone regulation look like?
There are an array of measures that could be implemented to ensure the safe use of drones in recreational and other contexts:
- Skill testing or licensing for users
- Device safety capability-based requirements, such as:
- collision avoidance (such as DJI Obstacle Avoidance on the Phantom 4)
- Software-based no fly zone implementation (such as DJI’s NFZ) - Identification requirements
- Finally, flight bans in areas impacting civil and military aviation
What has the drone industry done to self-regulate?
Quite a lot in a short amount of time.
- Developed collision avoidance systems in consumer drones based on ultrasonic and computer vision sensing
- Implemented automatic flight readiness checks verifying sensor status for safe flight, including GPS signal reception, compass, etc
- Developed Airport notification systems, like AirMap’s Digital Notice and Awareness System with over 125 participating airports (mostly US based)
- Geographic no fly-zone lockouts
Around 2.8 million personal drones will ship globally in 2017. Transport Canada’s approach seems to cling to a time when airspace users consisted only of military and civil aviation.
The Bottom Line
- The recent Transport Canada drone rules are a de-facto ban on recreational users and early-stage technologists.
- We need regulations that ensure public safety while balancing the value of current and future recreational, technical, and artistic uses of drone technology.
- The value to Canada’s “knowledge-based economy” needs to be included when determining the right balance for drone regulation. Within government, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) owns the mission to “foster a growing, competitive, knowledge-based Canadian economy”. ISED should be part of the process.
- The interests of recreational, technical, and artistic users of drones in the “knowledge-based economy” need to be included when determining the right balance for drone regulation — users should be consulted as part of the process.
Transport Canada and ISED should revisit recreational drone regulations, consulting with users to balance the needs of safety and innovation, and the legitimate recreational, technical, and artistic uses of drones.
Take Action
- Call or email:
The Honourable Marc Garneau
Minister of Transport
Hill Office: 613–996–7267
MARC.GARNEAU.A1@PARL.GC.CA - Call or email:
The Honourable Navdeep Bains
Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development
Hill Office: 613–995–7784
Navdeep.Bains@parl.gc.ca - Retweet this post
- Retweet the Canadian Drone Ban Map
- Use the Canadian Drone Ban Map to see the situation in your area (in Canada):
- Sign a Petition to Minister of Transport Marc Garneau (organized by Charles Lamoureux):
More Reading
- ‘No drone zone’ signs revealed for airports, more rules coming, minister says (June 2016) — the prior ruleset
- CBC.ca: U.S. approval of commercial UAVs outpacing Canadian rules (Aug 2016)
