New Canadian regulations regarding recreational drone use are drawing ire from UAV entusiasts. Canada recently enacted new drone regulations. The new regulations that apply to recreational use and were announced by Marc Garneau, Canada’s Minister of Transport, include but are not limited to the following:
- Users must mark their drone with their contact information, and may not fly:
- higher than 90 metres;
- at night;
- within 75 metres of buildings, vehicles or people; or
- within 9 kilometres of the centre of any airport, heliport, aerodrome or water aerodrome where aircraft take off and land.
Recreational users are not pleased and find the regulations to be “inflexible” and “overly restrictive.” The petitioners ask:
This petition respectfully requests that you amend the new recreational drone legislation to reflect a more balanced, fact based and pragmatic approach to drone safety in Canada.
You can find (and sign) the full text of the petition here.
The petition also offers up the following video to explain the issue. It is thoughtful, thorough, a little lengthy; but worth a watch.
Frank Schroth is editor in chief of DroneLife, the authoritative source for news and analysis on the drone industry: it’s people, products, trends, and events.
Email Frank
TWITTER:@fschroth
The new Transport Canada regs for recreational drone use do not make much sense and are too restrictive. The risk assessment analysis behind these regs is incorrect. I also wonder how you can put a word like “etc” in a list of prohibited flight locations. I am an ex-regulator and this does not make sense!