TRAN Committee Report

NDP supplementary opinion

At the beginning of our study on drones, we were still far from imagining the complexity of the challenge posed by the recreational and commercial use of drones and their regulation. While we support several of the Committee's recommendations, we would like to emphasize that some of them raise more questions than they provide clear guidance.

This is particularly the case with Recommendation 4, where no witnesses in the paragraph preceding the quote are directly associated with the idea that commercial operators work together in order to maintain productive dialogue with individuals who work in The experimental modification of unmanned aerial vehicles.

At this time, the Committee has not been able to identify categories of drones that should be subject to specific regulations.

Recommendation 19, for example, would require all types of drones, commercial and recreational, to be equipped with a transponder, which was not necessarily demonstrated by the study.

In particular, we propose that the Committee invite the following witnesses to discuss other aspects of the regulation of drones that the interim report was unable to address:

• The Minister of Transport to further disclose his vision to the Committee.
• The Privacy Commissioner of Canada to review the possible impacts of the use of drones on the protection of privacy and personal data.
• Trade unions so that workers' representatives can share their concerns about the safety of their members working in the airline industry
• Representatives from the economic sectors where drones will play a key role in their activities.
• Provincial and municipal representatives to disclose to the Committee their safety concerns

Finally, to the extent that the Committee's report indicates that this is an interim report, we reserve our final conclusion to the study on drones when the Committee finalizes its study on the subject.