OTTAWA — Developing military drones in Canada is difficult because of federal laws against interfering with flying objects—even your own.

Finding out how drones perform when they face countermeasures like radio-signal jamming—as practically every drone on every battlefield will—means taking them elsewhere for those trials.

“We’ve looked to the U.S. and Ukraine to be our partners in those types of tests,” said Kath Intson, CEO of Sentinel R&D, a drone maker based in Hamilton, Ont. 

Sentinel makes fixed-wing drones—like little airplanes—for reconnaissance and kamikaze attacks. A year ago, it was a startup hoping to supply drones to Ukraine and be ready when Canada eventually wanted them. Now, Sentinel has a deal with Ukraine’s Airlogix to produce Airlogix drones here and is selling drones of its own design to Ukrainian forces.

“We did tests in Texas just a few weeks ago,” Intson told The Logic at an exhibition at Ottawa autonomous-vehicle testing facility Area X.O.

The obstacle is in the Radiocommunication Act, which has a provision simply saying this: “No person shall install, use, possess, manufacture, import, distribute, lease, offer for sale or sell a jammer.”

There are limited exceptions for the military and its existing suppliers, the RCMP and prisons, set in regulations written under the law.

“Canada will not be able to produce anything that is effective in combat until we can test against jamming systems—conventional jamming systems, as well as staying at the bleeding edge of electronic warfare,” Intson said.

The Canadian Forces are very aware of the problem, said Lt.-Col. Nicolas Verreault, answering a question from Intson while he was on a panel at the Ottawa expo. Verreault is the head of the Canadian military’s Joint Uncrewed Systems Office, which is the central drone authority for the army, navy and air force.

“Being able to design systems that are resilient to enemy electronic warfare and having the ability to test systems domestically in Canada before we send them overseas is of vital importance,” he said.

Besides supporting exemptions to the no-jammers law for duly vetted suppliers, Verreault said, the Canadian Forces are considering opening test sites that the private sector could use, under cover of the military’s exemption.

The government could add more exceptions: Justin Simard, a spokesperson for the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, said in an email that it’s planning to hold consultations on “a proposed new class-based exemption for stakeholders in the legitimate supply chain for jammers, including developing defensive anti-drone applications.”

The plan is to have a new regulation in place before the end of 2028. “Until that process is complete, the current prohibitions and authorization requirements remain in place,” Simard said.

Speaking on a different panel at the exposition, Kevin Toderel, CEO of Toronto’s Remote Robotic Systems, said electronic warfare—interfering with drone controls, including by jamming signals—has rendered useless many drones that seem capable in tests.

He pointed to a U.S. program under then-president Joe Biden to build up private sector drone companies. The first four drone models it identified were sent to Ukraine to help defend it against Russia, Toderel said.

“You want to guess how many of those platforms actually worked in Ukraine? These are $30,000, $40,000 platforms,” he said. “Zero. Zero platforms worked.”

Surviving electronic countermeasures is “table stakes” in drone fights, Toderel said. “That has to be mandatory in the testing, and not just what we can get our hands on in Canada. We need to do our best to be able to get out into the field and test what our adversaries are using.”

The restriction on jammers in Canada also limits Canadians’ ability to develop anti-drone measures, Intson pointed out: “There is no practical pathway right now for a Canadian electronic warfare company.”

It is also illegal, incidentally, for a civilian to try to knock down a drone with a physical attack, like a projectile, a laser or a net. That’s in the Aeronautics Act, covering aircraft in general.

The Liberal government’s last budget bill amended that law so the federal transport minister can permit exemptions for drones, like the exceptions for police and military allowed in the Radiocommunication Act, though regulations for issuing those permits haven’t yet been written.

Electronic warfare tools that could repel drones—essentially creating bubble zones around potential targets—are better than ones that take them down physically, though, said Glen Lynch, CEO of drone company Volatus.

“You shoot down a drone, where does it go? You’re raining down bits and pieces on a schoolyard or a highway intersection,” he said. “The ideal scenario is not that we blow it up. The ideal scenario is that we put it in a lake.”

He said his company uses simulators to work on anti-drone gear and on hardening its drones against those measures.

“We can actually design and test systems,” he said. “The problem is we can’t test them in a real environment.”

Intson said Latvia has an electronic warfare testing range, despite being smaller and much more densely populated. “Canada, for sure, should be able to figure this out,” she said.