Trevor Dailey's Weblog

Labour Day in Canada is the first Monday in the month of September. There is a lot that goes on this day, and the weekend preceding it. Traditions are many for Labour day, and here are some of them:

Many businesses open there doors to the public on Labour Day. Traditionally, it has been places like factories, or other places of manufacturing, but many non-labouring business have begun to take part over the years. The public is invited to see how things work on the inside. It can be a fascinating time seeing how a business operates. Factories usually offer guided tours, and other businesses do similar. School children are often taken on class tours of businesses.

Labour Day is the time many of the unemployed look for work. Many businesses specifically look for new employees to hire on Labour Day. It is like an annual “we are hiring” event. It is an all day affair where someone who is unemployed is able to look for work at almost any business, large or small, on Labour Day.

In the schools, children are usually taught about the capitalistic system, where they learn about some of the fundamental ideas of capitalism, such as: private property, profit motive, competition, freedom of contract, and free enterprise. Older children may earn about how to start a business, or learn a skilled trade.

The weekend is usually when people get out and do some “labouring”. It could be helping a neighbour build a fence, or a even a house. People often volunteer their time to work on Labour Day. Adults usually work for free, but the young are paid for their work. It may be mowing the lawn, light house cleaning, washing a car, whatever small jobs can be done. They are paid to teach them that one must work for the money one gets, and the money earned is theirs.    

Of course, none of the above is true. Labour Day in Canada is the day when most people do not work, but they still get paid a day’s wage for doing nothing, that’s the law, and the socialists give public speeches and demonstrations blaming freedom and capitalism for all the many failures of socialism. I do not call it “Labour Day”, I call it “Marxism–Leninism Day” becasue that is exactly what it is.

(c) Trevor Dailey

Transport Canada Operation Compliance

The Small UAV Pilot Ground School course provides students with foundational knowledge for piloting small (25kg or less) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems (UAVs) operating within Visual Line of Sight (VLOS). This course covers five areas of required knowledge: Aeronautics (General Knowledge), Air Law, Radio Communications, Meteorology, and Air Navigation. This course is compliant with Transport Canada's requirements for Pilots of Small UAV Systems (TP 15263).

I passed this online course as part of my career change plan. I want to be employed as a professional UAV pilot. I am asking myself why I spent $415.40 of my hard-earned money on this misnamed and overpriced course. The course appears to be the result of Transport Canada’s excessive bureaucratic and unnecessarily complex regulation of UAVs.

Most of the course content is irrelevant or contradictory to UAV operation containing a large amount of material that is unimportant or valueless. A large portion of the UAV knowledge requirements recommended in the Transport Canada document that is included with the course: “Knowledge Requirements for Pilots of Unmanned Air Vehicle Systems UAV 25 kg or less, Operating within Visual Line of Sight” is not even included in the course content.After reading each lesson unit multiple times, I still found some of the test questions excessively difficult, or confusing, with no answers contained in the lessons to some of the questions. All the quizzes contain little or nothing regarding UAVs. The instructor's involvement in the course was minimal, in my opinion, I received no response to my email regarding the subject of High Frequency (HF) radio contained in the course. As soon as I wrote the final exam, I was denied access to the course without anymore communication with the course instructor. I still do not know how to obtain my certificate proving I passed the course. The third party online survey I was asked to complete was irelevant to the course.  

From the beginning of the course, I spent almost all of my free time being frustrated and disappointed by this scaled down private pilot ground school course that has taught me practically nothing about piloting UAVs. My opinion is this course was a waste of my money.

(c) Trevor Dailey