There's No Point in Getting a Drone License in Canada

So, I was thinking of getting a drone for taking interesting videos of different events and parties that I frequent. Up until June 1, 2019, it was legal to fly a drone without a certificate. You also didn't have to register your drone. All this has changed, and that's all fine and dandy. I can appreciate that they're trying to keep the country a safer place by putting in regulations.

The problem I have is in the restrictions they place on flying your drone with an advanced drone certificate. I was doing a little research as to what you can and can't fly over, and one of the biggest problems was that you are prohibited to fly your drone over any advertised event.

To put that into perspective, there might be a community picnic, and you won't be able to fly your drone and take videos, because someone will have probably created some sort of advertisement to promote that community picnic. You might even be part of the promotional team for the picnic, and still not be allowed to fly your drone over it. This means you can't even promote your own event with drones!

You need a special Flight Operations certificate to be granted permission to fly at an advertised event: another set of certificates that make flying a drone in Canada a bureaucratic nightmare. Not a lot of people realize that the laws have changed just recently, on June 1, 2019.

That's why that guy in Toronto got into big trouble for taking footage of the Raptors parade earlier in the summer. The fines are pretty hefty, too. They can go up to $27,500 for civil penalties, and up to $250,000 in criminal penalties. I really hope for the Raptors fan's sake that the footage was worth it.

I just wanted to take videos of little small events, and capture them for my own personal collection.

The regulation headaches don't stop there. You can't fly your drone above 122 meters up, or 400 feet in the air. To me, that's not too bad. I don't imagine wanting to go up that high, but then again, I don't own a drone so I don't know if that's low or high. Usually, drones have wide angle lenses, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem.

There are still benefits of owning the drone certificate. You can still make good use of the drones for your own personal movies. You can take videos of your house, so long as you're not selling it. Otherwise, there might be a case against you, as it's an advertised event.

Those that are thinking of making their own independent movies may still have some use for the drone certificate. I don't think I'm ambitious enough to make something like that. In my case, I just want to take short little clips for my private collection.

There is a work-around for this issue, though. I'm able to put my GoPro on a kite or balloon for the images. Apparently, you don't have to have a drone license, or register anything that's under 250 grams in weight. I don't think they'll be able to get me if I fly things like that. I have also seen little football-like toys that you can stuff your action camera into, and it will work similar to a drone, where you can launch it in the air, but there's no real control over it in the air.

So, while Canadians are trying to figure out their drone problems, there are a few ways that I'll probably go about to take in-air far shots for videos. It'll seem super ghetto, but oh well. It's better than nothing, and it's certainly better than getting those crazy expensive fines for doing something against the law.

Who knows—I might stop being lazy and get my license, and also add a special flight operation certificate so I can take videos of events. Since it's so difficult to get it, it may be a little job opportunity as well, because I'm sure not a ton of people are willing to go through hoops to get these drone certificates.