Don’t confuse the implementation and enforcement of regulations with the regulations themselves. Fewer regulations won’t necessarily make things easier, and in some cases could actually make “red tape” even worse when it is rewritten to be so broad that it can be used however the enforcer decides it should be used. Assuming there’s anyone left to enforce the regulations, that is.
We may love to hate them, but regulations keep things organized and on a level playing field - and yes, like any human construct, can also be used to control or punish some people.
The bigger problem is bureaucrats, who are rarely accountable, are issuing their own de facto regulations through interpretations and policies. That is one of the biggest targets for the next administration. I’m all for that, but we won’t know if it works out until it’s tried.
Russ’ article comes across as someone who is in favor of bigger govt and more regs. One of the last big de-regulation periods in American aviation worked out pretty well for the health of the industry as a whole. If Russ wants more regs and less competition I’d suggest he take a long look at GA in China. There’s a list of reasons Chinese students are sent to the U.S. to learn how to fly.
The only members of the public that understand and support aviation are those that live in geographic regions of Canada that need it. Canada will never have a “critical mass” of folks who support aviation activities as does the U.S. As for arbitrary two for one ideas I always ask if this is the policy at the bank. No takers there. What is needed is not jingoism but a careful review and probable rewrite of legislation to bring it up to date along with clear and simplified language, not a teardown of legislation that has created the U.S. Patchwork legislation on common interests such as transportation is goofy at best and probably leads to more restrictive operations. I don’t think Russ is a closet Liberal, there aren’t many of those west of the lakehead (Superior).
what’s the difference between Vancouver-Calgary-Winnipeg-Toronto-Montreal and Seattle-Minneapolis-Chicago-Buffalo…? Most of Canada’s population lives with in 200 miles of the US border.
You are conflating two things, what does reducing regulations have to do with Canada per se? Canada has ample quantity of the same problem.
BTW, what does perceived political views of Russ Niles have to do with Canada as such? Many people in the US have similar views.
(BC is West of the lakehead, often has a socialist government, one just got narrowly re-elected. There is a rising tide of voter unhappiness with Marxism-based governments, that almost defeated the BC government, it will defeat the federal government next year. Yes, eco-____ is a key reason, government costs another.)
'Eco____ including carbon tax which of course affects aviation both directly and by the underlying ideology, and opposition to development of resources for export.
Yes Keith, that is my point. We are over governed by local, municipal, regional, provincial and federal governments each of which steps on the others toes and is fundamentally unaware (polite word) of the other’ concerns. In regards to aviation which is foreign to most, I refer to G.A. which has a central focus to folks who need and rely on it frequently to enable normal life to unfold. Most everyone has abandoned “Marxism” and instead embraced some degree of “socialism” which can be the death knell to innovation and freedom. We must choose carefully and not discard the gains society has made for a dog eat dog world. There needs to always be a path to a stable, supportive society that values innovation, freedom and the work of a person to improve their own situation as well as society’s. B.C is often an anomaly in terms of politics yet the population does not seem to be decreasing. As a Country we need to find a path with forestry, mining, manufacturing and other industry that leads a way for us to generate revenue to support a healthy society. Not much different from our cousins in the U.S. Perhaps you missed the intent of my comment about closet Liberals. Fair enough. Try a reread of the posted comments.
Well Russ, you finally did it. I got the feeling, after “Flying” took over your operation, that Avweb was on the Fast Track to Wokesville. The fact that you, being a Canadian citizen, seem to keep inserting yourself into American politics tends to ruffle my feathers. I will longer subscribe to your WOKE publication, that masquerades as an Aviation Publication. There are plenty of other reputable publications out there that provide Aviation related content, and manage to keep their Political preferences to themselves. The Main Stream Media is finally learning that when you alienate over half the US Population with Left Wing nonsense, your bottom line will eventually plummet. Perhaps your company will learn that lesson before it is too late!
From Russ. One of my perks is being able to edit comments so when I have a response for a specific comment I’m just going to write it in that comment.
I get the Canadian thing but I can’t help it. Born in Victoria, B.C. and, as the son of an RCAF officer who spent his whole career in NORAD (in the intensely dangerous late 50s to early 70s) I’d argue that I have some skin in the game. I even lived in Great Falls, Montana for a time growing up. We could see a Minuteman silo from our back porch which means that if the unthinkable had happened I, and hundreds of my countrymen, would have died for your country, in your country, along with your citizens. That’s still the deal we have with the U.S., by the way.
But I digress.
I’m not sure where the woke thing came from in this blog. I thought it addressed a practical matter that might arise from a political decision.
As for your assessment of the state of media in general, I’d be interested to see your list of “reputable” outlets. Also, the notion that there are sides to pick when it comes to who’s reputable is an interesting take on the First Amendment.
As for political comment, it would be a lot easier and maybe even safer for me to avoid it but I will offer it whenever and however I see fit as it relates to aviation. That the reputable publications you admire avoid such discussion tells me a lot.
Anyway, when I blunder in, it will be your Constitutional right to agree, disagree or fall somewhere in between.
From the outside looking in, I’d recommend you cherish that right. What you seem to be embracing is the opposite.
Decisions made in Washington, DC don’t stop at US borders. They extend globally, affecting economies, alliances, and cultures. For our neighbors in Canada, this means even small US policy changes hit hard, making it justifiable for Canadians to speak out. As American politics shape global trends, nations must stay alert and adapt swiftly to the political ripples, or at times, tsunamis.
I would argue that it’s not government that is into too much in people’s lives, but society that is into too much in people’s lives. Government is just a subset of society. And what I mean by that is just look at Google and Apple and Amazon and Netflix and all of these company’s products that we use that track our location and search terms and habits. And it’s only getting worse with “AI” on the scene.
The thing is, government is a construct that we have come up with as a way to manage society, and in the US at least, it’s there to protect society from evildoers that are only looking out for themselves. That’s why cars and aircraft and medicine and such are as safe as they are - not because those companies decided to build better, safer products of their own decisions, but because they were forced to. Look at, for example, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire; regulations were created to prevent that from happening again.
It’s too naively simplistic to say “kill 2 regulations for every 1 created”, because some very useful regulations will get killed along with the less useful ones. The problem is, the real solution is to take a closer look at all of them and how they interact, and to cut out the useless ones or reshape them to be more useful. Sometimes that means reducing regulations, other times that might mean adding new ones for clarification. But that’s not a simple soundbyte that will trend.
Many Americans work in Canada for varying amounts of time.
Many Americans vacation in Canada, some own vacation property in Canada.
Americans in the US buy products from Canada, including airplanes like the renowned CL415 aerial fire suppression tanker, high purity laboratory chemicals, log harvesting machines, and the natural gas people in Seattle like to use.
Canada even allows Americans to travel through Canada to get to Alaska, even during the SARS2 panicdemic.
Sometimes Americans are stoopid, like Boeing fomenting tariffs on the efficient Bombardier C-Series airliner - read up on how that backfired big time, including the response of a major US airline.
Thankyou.
And there’s no shortage of Americans ranting about Canada.
One Congressperson inferred violence was needed because pasta makers in the US were importing durum wheat at lower price than being sold for in the US - where prices had risen because the US government subsidized export to Turkey where it was made into pasta that was sold into the US: double wham on pasta makers in the US.
(Funny thing about weather - it ignores those artificial lines on pieces of paper. So durum grows well in a diamond-shaped area of AB-MT-ND-SK.)
Rick, had you used a fraction of the effort that went into your high-dudgeon code-word-laden rant on perceived political biases in Russ’ article, and used it to proofread your own philippic, you might have noticed that your Primary Threat was exactly the opposite of what you intended: “I will longer subscribe to your WOKE publication”.
I trust you put more care into copying a clearance. Otherwise, I won’t be comfortable sharing the NAS with you, much less the AvWeb commentary.
Yes.
There is a mentality/psychology of adding rules to solve a problem - often instead of using existing laws or capabilities such as police feet on the street and detectives.
Do-gooders evade reality, I say.
MOSAIC (light sport aircraft regulations) were a joke from the beginning. The intent was clear, but what was written condemned people to toys that were both useless and unsafe to operate. That’s why $$Billions$$ were spent and today you never see a light sport aircraft in the air. They don’t serve any meaningful purpose. If you weigh over 100 pounds and want to travel more than 50 miles forget it. It was not an intentional start on meaningful revision of aircraft or pilot regulations. Now they want to tweak them just enough to make people think someday they will actually be able to fly a real aircraft. Doesn’t look like it to me. It’s Nancy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown every step of the way. Either let people fly or just shut the whole thing down. There are enormous areas of the USA where you can fly for hours and never encounter a person or building or anything else. It’s the classic tyranny of those who live in cities imposing their highly limited view on those who live in a very different environment.
While I agree that the original light-sport requirements were flawed, I would say it is not correct to say that no one flies them. There are some regularly-flying ones in the area where I fly, and I know several people who own or have owned one (including some older aircraft that also happen to fit within the current LSA rules).
Many of the LSAs I know of are also over-built to be able to support higher payloads. These are typically kit aircraft that can be built as E-LSA or non-LSA, and as far as I’m aware (at least for some of them), the only difference is what category they’re flight-tested as (i.e. a paperwork difference). I suspect this is because they hope that one day the LSA category will be expanded and now these E-LSAs can have a paperwork gross weight increase.
There is no “landslide” for Trump. He didn’t even get a majority of the vote, and in 2016, Hillary Clinton was ahead of him by more votes than Trump’s margin over Harris this year.
Still, he gets to be “president” again, so here we go. Regulatory review is certainly a valid objective, but beware of targets without rational basis. Why 2 for 1? Why not 27 for 1, or 1.6 for 1?
Because it sounds good. That’s it. And that’s not a good reason for regulatory anything.
So sure - direct a root-and-branch review of existing regulations for statutory basis, continued need, clarity, minimized complexity, and effectiveness. If they fail that analysis, do what’s necessary to adjust or repeal them. If they’re valid, leave them alone. But that says next to nothing about the need and justification for other regulatory actions based on other circumstances - so failing to implement new (and needed) regulations because existing regulations in other situations were reviewed and found to be valid seems like a really bad idea.
If you subscribe to the “all regulations stink” theory, well…go ahead and hack away. You’ll likely discover (for better or worse) why a lot of regulations exist. Chances are that it’s not because some bored bureaucrats came to work one morning and decided to invent new ways to annoy the public.