What Canada’s 2025 Drone Regulations Mean for Everyday Flyers
Transport Canada has now rolled out its full wave of drone regulation changes for 2025, with the April updates long behind us and the November rules newly in effect. There’s been a lot of noise online about what all this means, and most of it either oversells the changes or completely misses the point. So here’s the simple version, from someone who actually flies on Vancouver Island constantly, in real weather, real airspace, around real people, at real hours of the morning when most of the Island is still asleep and the only witnesses are gulls and the occasional deer.
The new rules essentially break down into two categories: administrative changes that happened back in April, and more meaningful operational changes that arrived in early November. The April side of things handled restructures like new exam tracks and the operator certificate (RPOC) framework. The November update was the one that actually affected flying — adding defined categories for extended visual line of sight (EVLOS), low-risk beyond line of sight allowances, sheltered operations, and some clearer boundaries for medium-sized drones. NAV Drone updated to match, with new flight type options and more precise authorization pathways. If you’re an advanced pilot, none of this is scary or confusing. If you’ve been treating drone rules like an optional suggestion, it probably feels overwhelming.
And that brings me to my one opinion that hasn’t changed in years: every single person who flies a drone in Canada should get the Basic Certificate. I don’t care if you’re flying a $200 toy or a $5,000 rig — the Basic exam teaches you things you absolutely need to know. The rules in Canada are not intuitive. You cannot tell by looking whether you’re in controlled airspace. You cannot “just guess” whether your location is safe, or whether you’re accidentally over bystanders, or what altitude restrictions actually apply to the terrain you’re on. You won’t magically know that migratory bird sanctuaries are off-limits. You won’t instinctively understand NOTAMs or heliport radiuses or how weather interacts with your drone’s sensors. These things must be learned, and the Basic Certificate is designed to teach exactly that.
It costs ten bucks. That’s literally it. Ten dollars and an hour or two of studying using completely free resources. It’s the easiest, cheapest way to prevent yourself from being the pilot who ruins it for everyone else. Almost every time someone confronts me while I’m flying — even when I’m following every rule — it’s because they had a previous bad experience with someone who didn’t know what they were doing. Those pilots are the reason regular fliers like me get questioned, yelled at, or lectured about rules we’re already following. If more new pilots took the Basic exam, there’d be fewer incidents, fewer complaints, and a lot less drama on beaches and boardwalks.
As for advanced pilots, the 2025 changes don’t rewrite your world, but they do matter. If you’re flying commercially, the new categories make your planning more structured whether you’re staying within VLOS, using EVLOS with a spotter, or exploring any of the newly defined operation types. It’s still the same job, but with clearer paperwork and expectations. What hasn’t changed is that you’re expected to be competent, current, and aware of the rules — something that honestly should’ve always been the baseline.
And just to clear up one last thing I see confusing people online: not every new drone is an “upgrade.” The Air 3S is still my primary tool. It’s my cinematic camera, the one I trust for commercial flights and the drone that handles Vancouver Island wind and light properly. The new Neo 2 is fun, impressive for the price, and fantastic for kids — especially for follow-me shots and early training — but it’s not a replacement for a real cinematic aircraft. It lives in a totally different category, and that’s how it should be.
So here’s the bottom line. Canada tightened the rules this year, not to make life harder for pilots, but to make the sky safer and more predictable as drones become more common. If you fly, you owe it to yourself and everyone around you to understand the basics. Get the Basic Certificate. Or at the very least, study the exact material for it so you know what’s legal, what isn’t, and how not to accidentally end up being “that pilot” who becomes the reason someone tries to ban drones from another park.
If you treat the airspace with respect, it treats you well back — and you get to keep enjoying the freedom of flying on this island without unnecessary headaches. And honestly, that’s worth a lot more than ten bucks.
