An Admission by the President of MAAC – May 2023
In this article you will find:-
- A short introduction to what was admitted about the cause of MAAC’s state of affairs
- The Background to the lingering story
- The details of what was admitted to
- A discussion of what was not revealed in the admission
- A discussion of the further considerations that the admissions affect
- How did the universal outdoor flying ban help MAAC?
- What Did the Prosecution of One Ex-Zone Director Achieve?
- Conclusions
Introduction.
In his column in the March/April 2023 issue of Model Aviation Canada (MAC) the President of MAAC has finally admitted that it is MAAC’s administration that has been the root cause of all the troubles that have plagued the association in recent months. Of course, he continues to claim that the careless action of some directors breached the conditions of the Exemption from Part IX of CARs but he then goes on to admit to the real fault – that it was MAAC’s own actions or, in many cases, inactions, that created the problem. While issuing this momentous admission – and an apology – there are still details of what occurred that he omitted to mention. We will try to fill in the gaps here.
What was the Background?
Prior to the 21st century, model aircraft fliers of every category were able to enjoy their hobby/sport in a self-regulated fashion. The biggest issue in our interaction with the general public was that of noise. Over the last two decades, however, there have been technological developments, particularly in the area of telemetry, autonomous operation, and multi-rotor hovering craft, as well as small gas turbine technology and near silent electric power that led to concern about several aspects of the use of the technology. Those concerns were a projected demand for the use of airspace for commercial unmanned aerial vehicles, an increasing physical threat capability, and threats to personal privacy. This led government agencies, particularly Nav Canada and Transport Canada, to begin to consider the need for regulation of this type of activity. Those musings began as early as 2005, when the Canadian Aviation Regulations Advisory Committee (CARAC) was formed, and MAAC was involved almost from the start in the person of its then President.
Prior to June 2019, when the Exemption to the new part of the CARs (Part IX) was brought into force, MAAC had been party to the discussions leading up to it. It was clear that, if the Exemption was simply brought into force on a certain date there would be a sudden need for around 500 RPAS sites across Canada to be identified and those that were used for operation of RPAS in controlled airspace (an unknown number at the time but possibly quite large) would have to be approved. To avoid this disruption to MAAC’s activities it was agreed that a list of the existing RPAS sites in controlled airspace or within 3 nm of an aerodrome would be created by MAAC and provided to Nav Canada so that those sites could be “grandfathered” – in other words, they could continue operations seamlessly. Only RPAS sites in controlled airspace or within 3 nm of an aerodrome, that were to be approved after the June 2019 Exemption start date, would need to follow the prescribed approval procedure – obtaining permission from whichever agency controlled the airspace.
What was admitted to?
It was stated by the President that in late 2018 and early 2019 the Transport Canada Advisory Group (TCAG), in an effort at complying with the Nav Canada requirement, compiled a list of the sites that they thought were operating in controlled airspace. They used the MAAC electronic database record to glean their information. It is also admitted that, after June 2019, nothing further happened between MAAC and either NavCan or Transport Canada, or internally, for nearly three years.
We would be remiss if we did not discuss here the excuse that was given for the lack of any action during that three-year period. Here is what was said:-
“Then in early 2020, Covid-19 brought international aviation to a near standstill, and talks were no-longer a priority.”
For the first nine months of this period Covid-19 had not even been heard of on these shores and, for the following two years, international aviation activity was curtailed. What better time could there possibly have been for MAAC to examine its internal processes and ensure that they met required standards? What better time to engage in meaningful discussions with both Nav Canada and Transport Canada? MAAC’s volunteers were not busy flying for a large part of this time period – even the extended building season began to pall somewhat when we did not have an end in sight for much of the time. The government employees were similarly lacking in other distractions. A huge opportunity was lost – and now it is being used as an excuse for inaction.
It was further stated that, in March of 2022, the SAG completed its own review of all 530 outdoor flying sites known to MAAC and reportedly found that ten sites had been sanctioned in controlled airspace after June 1, 2019. It is not stated whether other sites not in controlled airspace, or in controlled airspace and sanctioned prior to 2019, but not previously identified in the 2019 survey, were also found. The matter was discussed at three Board meetings in April and at the third meeting it was decided to suspend operations at those sites. Unfathomably, in the very next sentence of the President’s message it is admitted that it had also been found that some of those sites had become inactive or unused. So – sites that the Board believed to have been sanctioned after June 2019, possibly as late as 2021, had become inactive by April 2022! It is said that this led to the realization that MAAC’s database did not reflect where members were flying. We are left to wonder why it did not also lead to the realization that the database was probably not an accurate reflection of when fields had been sanctioned either. Interestingly, it is revealed that, also in April 2022, NavCan decided that they wanted to meet with MAAC – after a 3-year hiatus! A quite extraordinary coincidence if Nav Canada had not been given some notification of potential problems brewing.
Without going into all the details contained in Mr. Anderson’s report we can summarize the failures of MAAC’s leadership that have been admitted within it:-
- MAAC leadership knew that the conditions of the Exemption required accurate data records but, following its introduction, they did nothing to ensure that a robust system existed – they didn’t even review the existing system.
- Knowing that sanctioning of fields in controlled airspace would be a critical matter following the advent of the Exemption, nothing was done to ensure that the process for such fields was unambiguous and known to all. It is admitted that there were conflicts in MAAC’s documentation and that Zone Directors were not provided with clear direction or training.
- Despite having no clear knowledge of when sites were first sanctioned, or known by MAAC to have been in use by its members, and without doing any internal review to determine the truth of what they were reporting, MAAC went ahead and reported to Nav Canada that sites in controlled airspace had been sanctioned after the June 1, 2019, cut-off date.
- ‘Qualified Pilot’ status was granted to all current members of MAAC in June 2019 – despite the fact that some of those members had never even owned or operated an RC transmitter – let alone possessed any skill or knowledge of their operation.
There is a further statement in the President’s column, which is not an admission of fault, per se, but which is certainly highly questionable. In the discussion on MAAC 2.0 and Exemption 2.0 we find the following claim – “This ‘audit and fix’ exercise has proven the value of the outdoor flying suspension.” We will discuss that statement at the end of this article.
What was not revealed?
These revelations are damning of the current administration of MAAC, and some go back to a time before the Exemption was even put into place. However, there is much more that MAAC’s membership needs to know that is not revealed in the report to the membership.
- The ‘Status Quo” List. While it is true that such a list was compiled, the message fails to reveal that, in doing so, there was no attempt to ensure that such a list was accurate and complete. The membership was never even told that such a list was needed, and the membership was never invited to contribute their knowledge of sites that were in current use and had been before June 2019. Even the Board of Directors (whose members, individually, were the people responsible for sanctioning sites in their zones) were not invited to review or contribute to the list that was compiled. Club presidents, who would have direct knowledge of sites that they operated, were not invited to examine the list to ensure its validity. Everything was done in the greatest of secrecy – despite constant references to how ‘transparent’ MAAC had become. As we now know, the list was not only incomplete – it was based on information in a faulty database that MAAC should have reviewed for its effectiveness for the new purposes before the Exemption even came into effect.
It is the incompetence and secrecy with which this “status quo” list was compiled, and MAAC’s negligence in not reviewing the suitability of its database for the purpose it would be put to, that are entirely to blame for the debacle that ensued. Had these matters been attended to properly, none of this would have happened. - There is a very strange anomaly in this message concerning the “status quo” agreement. It is said that the agreement was intended to be temporary, with the expectation that a more permanent agreement would allow MAAC to sanction sites in controlled airspace. This is the first time that any such expectation has been brought to the attention of MAAC’s membership – nearly four years after the Exemption was established. Just what that statement means is quite a mystery – no explanation is provided.
Under the terms of the Exemption it was quite possible for MAAC to sanction sites in controlled airspace, the only difference between that and uncontrolled airspace was that permission had to be sought from the authority controlling the airspace, once that was done MAAC, through its zone directors, had the authority to sanction sites in controlled airspace. The mystery is – what new “more permanent agreement” was needed, or anticipated, and how would it differ from what was in place in June 2019? - It should be remarked here that, in the President’s Message, it is said that some of the ten sites that had been labeled as having been sanctioned after June 1, 2019, were later found to have become “inactive or unused”. This is somewhat astonishing – in less than three years after MAAC believed the sites to have been first sanctioned they then became unused! We can find no criterion in MAAC’s documentation that defines when a sanctioned field becomes “unused” – or that its sanction is then invalid and the site no longer usable. This is claimed to be the first indicator for MAAC that its database was unreliable – three years after the Exemption! Having discovered that this data was unreliable it apparently didn’t occur to anyone that the data concerning the date of initial sanctioning might not be accurate. It is also said that this was an indicator that MAAC did not have knowledge of where members were flying. This, in itself, illustrates a misperception in MAAC’s leadership about what their duty was. What they needed to know was where MAAC’s RPAS fliers could fly – not just where they actually currently were flying. For the non-RPAS fliers they really didn’t (and still don’t) need to know any such information.
The most serious issue here, however, which matches the problems with the “status quo” list, is that, once again, none of the people who could have shed light on the facts were asked to provide whatever evidence they had access to, so that MAAC’s decisions could be made based on the best available information. Secrecy, only one tiny group (including only one member of the Board) having access to the material, took precedence over accuracy and protection of MAAC’s members. - There is another issue raised by the complete lack of information gathering by this Board throughout this process. The underlying problem isn’t just an obsession with secrecy – though that is certainly a serious shortcoming. Perhaps even more important than that, however, is that these events illustrate a serious lack of understanding of their role by a majority of members of the Board. It is clear that, as an entity, this Board feels that having been elected to a position of decision-making authority, this somehow endows them with all-encompassing knowledge of all things. That is a serious and dangerous misperception. Becoming a director of a NFP Corporation carries with it certain responsibilities. First among those responsibilities is the necessity to diligently apprise themselves of all pertinent facts concerning a matter under consideration. Rather than assuming that they already possess all knowledge, they must consult with others who have recognized expertise and ask searching questions, keeping in mind always that their primary objective is for the good of the membership. Once the Board is in possession of all pertinent facts that it can reasonably assemble it must then consider what course of action will produce the best outcome for its members. That is when their function as directors comes into play – they must use their collective wisdom (not knowledge) to make a judgment on the best path to follow. A further consideration must always be that their decisions must, as far as is possible, not benefit one segment of the membership at the expense of harm to another segment.
{Note: Some have mistakenly tried to separate the good of the Corporation from the good of its members. That is a fundamental mistake. The Corporation IS its members, it has no other purpose for existence. Nothing is good for the Corporation if it isn’t good for the members.}
Further Considerations.
There are a number of issues that these revelations shine light upon. We will discuss some of them here.
Suspension of a Member.
Early in 2023 the Board voted to suspend a member who they accused of having wrongfully sanctioned flying fields in controlled airspace, without obtaining controlling agency permission, after the June 2019 deadline when such permission became mandatory. This process was carried out in what can only be described as a “kangaroo court” – using a clause in the By-Laws that the Board agreed one year ago, at the 2022 AGM, was badly flawed and promised to re-write. They never did re-write that clause but, rather than use the far more reasonable alternate process outlined in the Policy Manual, they chose to use the disgraceful By-Law. The member involved, who was a zone director at the time that the infraction was supposed to have taken place, produced evidence to show that the accusation was false and based on the faulty information that the President has now admitted to. He was convicted anyway and his membership removed. If he ever wants to rejoin MAAC it has been threatened that he will be subject to restrictive conditions not applied to members in good standing.
As a side note to this travesty it should be revealed that, this member was accused of having wrongly sanctioned four sites, one of which did not appear on the list of ten wayward sites that the SAG produced in April 2022 – apparently, even with a second attempt at it, the TCAG and the SAG were unable to produce an authoritative list of sites – but the Board still felt confident that they could eject a member based only on information supplied by that group. The President has admitted that even after the second ‘survey’ identified ten sites that had previously been missed, another five were subsequently ‘discovered’, for a total of fifteen.
Differentiating between Misdemeanours.
The President stated that the SAG found a total of four zone directors who had wrongfully sanctioned ten sites in controlled airspace after June 2019. An examination of the March 2022 report by the SAG shows that actually they found a total of six zone directors who they thought had made that mistake on a total of ten sites. Only one of those six was charged with wrongdoing and had his membership revoked.
The Exemption contained one condition related to this misdemeanour, condition #3, which reads:-
Prior to sanctioning a field in Class C, D, E, F, or any other type of restricted airspace, MAAC shall obtain an authorization through a written agreement from the appropriate controlling agency or user agency for the area. The agreement shall include operational boundaries, maximum altitudes, and communication protocols to facilitate the safe operation of RPAS at the field;
This condition does not differentiate between any of the classes of controlled airspace – the condition is breached if, after June 1, 2019, a field is sanctioned within controlled airspace and without the prior written agreement of the controlling agency. The Exemption was to be canceled upon any of its conditions having been breached – with no reference to the class of the airspace signifying any degree of seriousness of the infraction. The Exemption makes no reference to the location of the infraction within the airspace either. A breach is a breach – no exceptions – there is no “may be canceled” statement, it is quite clearly “is canceled” if any condition is breached.
MAAC, however, takes a different view. In the report on the ten sites that the SAG thought they had found violating the Exemption, each is given a “severity” rating – either LOW, MEDIUM, HIGH, or VERY HIGH. Not only that, the description of the sites contains a discussion of where they are positioned relative to airport features. Neither of those factors has any significance vis-à-vis the MAAC Exemption. If the SAG’s assessment of the ten sites (and the six zone directors’ actions) was correct then they each, equally, breached condition #3 of the Exemption – there can be no relevance to MAAC’s assessment of an infraction’s “severity”. They are either in breach, or they are not. In fact, the discussion of different ‘severity’ of various infractions is potentially damaging to MAAC – it must signal to the controlling agencies that we have a poor grasp of the important factors affecting the establishment and continuation of any special treatment from Transport Canada – the ‘severity’ of an infraction has no relevance.
In addition, there are some very curious statements made in the SAG’s assessment of the various sites that they believed had been sanctioned after the cut-off date.
In one instance it is said that
“While MAAC is Exempt from all of Part IX, it is worth noting the extra prohibitions for RPAS flight within 3nm of military aerodromes (CAR 901.47(3))”.
This is in the discussion of a site that was noted to be 7.16nm from a military aerodrome! The relevance of extra prohibitions – that MAAC was exempt from – in an area that MAAC members were nowhere near encroaching upon, is difficult to determine. This reference is a clear reflection of the SAG’s inability to put the interests of MAAC members first, their obsession being with discussing CAR factors even when they do not apply.
The next example is a site that the SAG believe was sanctioned before the cut-off date – but was not known to them at that time. They say that this means it is outside the “status quo” agreement. So that agreement apparently wasn’t about which sites were in operation prior to the cut-off date – it was about which sites the SAG, from their sole, uncorroborated, knowledge, knew about and reported to Nav Canada at the cut-off date.
Similarly, for another site, reported to have been sanctioned on May 21, 2021, it is said that it is “potentially an ‘old pre-existing’ site, but was NOT included in 2019 submission to TC or NAV and is therefore a ‘new’ site under the Exemption status quo rules.” As no-one has been allowed to see the status quo agreement, this statement of it being against the rules cannot be verified. It seems highly questionable that an agreement should have been reached in which it is prohibited to correct mistakes that have been made. It is intriguing to find that the SAG had some reason to think that this site was “potentially pre-existing” but apparently didn’t consider that they might have been equally mistaken about the other sites on their list.
Then there is this statement:-
“Probably most concerning is the club seeming to realize that they are in Class C controlled airspace and know RPAS flight is prohibited, but mistakenly think if they stay under 250g its okay.”
Transport Canada’s definition of RPAS includes that the machine must weigh 250g or more. Anything under 250g is not an RPAS under Transport Canada’s definition and thus also under the MAAC Exemption. The club was not mistaken in its belief.
One final quote – for one of the clubs involved it is said
“How active this ‘club’ is cannot be determined.”
A perfect illustration of how reluctant the SAG has been to find accurate information about any of this. It most certainly could have been determined how active the club is – just as it could be for any MAAC-registered club – simply pick up the phone or send an email enquiry, if the information actually matters. What relevance there is between the “activeness” of a club and whether a site has been properly sanctioned is something we cannot speculate about. Nothing in MAAC’s rules, or the Exemption, refers to the level of “activeness” at any approved location. As far as we can determine there is no criterion for declaring a site sanction to be revoked based on how much use it gets. There is a process for de-sanctioning a site if its circumstances change. Oh – and by the way – it is this particular club’s site sanctions that the one member was martyred over – the only one out of six transgressors; but the SAG didn’t deem it necessary to check the activity level, or the actual length of time the site had been in use, before making the accusations.
Compounding the above statements in the report to the Board we also have the report from the Chairman of the TCAG in the same issue of the MAC magazine as the President’s report discussed earlier. In that report the TCAG chairman claims that, in its explanation for revoking the Exemption, Transport Canada cited one field and one zone director as being the “primary evidences”for the cancelation. There is a strong implication here (without actually saying so directly) that it was this one misdemeanour, as reported to Transport Canada, that triggered the events that transpired. It seems highly unlikely that such an implication has any validity. Transport Canada were the primary authors of the Exemption; they are acutely aware that it contains no ‘degrees of severity’. A breach of condition #3 is to sanction a site in controlled airspace, after June 1st, 2019, without obtaining written permission from the controlling agency. A breach causes cancelation of the Exemption – any breach, no leeway for ‘severity’. It seems highly unlikely that a government employee charged with supervision of an agreement such as the Exemption would, on his own recognizance, add nuances to the written requirements. If he did so he would be exposing himself to great risk of being disciplined. Even the claim that he did so, in our magazine, could place him at some jeopardy.
The fact is that the SAG, with the collaboration of the TCAG, brought accusations of multiple transgressions (regardless of whether they were actually well-grounded) but the fault for those transgressions (if they were real – which is quite questionable) lay with MAAC’s leadership and the lack of proper process – not with a single delinquent ex-zone director – and Transport Canada recognized that – a fact that is made quite clear by the President, who says “poor internal controls” was one of the issues cited. The accusations of the transgressions may be false – the delinquency of the Board and, in particular, the SAG and the TCAG, is undeniable. It is those failures that have caused our recent troubles – and those alone. The President does admit that the sites that he provided responses for, to Transport Canada, were just those related to one zone director – not the other five.
It is of interest to note that, of the six zone directors who allegedly sanctioned sites in controlled airspace after the June 2019 deadline, only one is currently still a zone director. Of the five who have vacated that position since that time, not one is among the six other zone directors who have resigned within the last few months – not to mention the Executive Director and the member of the TCAG who have also resigned recently.
How did the universal outdoor flying ban help MAAC?
“This ‘audit and fix’ exercise has proven the value of the outdoor flying suspension.”
We are astounded by this piece of self-serving misdirection. There has never been any justification for introducing a total ban on outdoor flying. The issue in this sad litany of incompetence and mistakes at the highest levels of MAAC’s administration has always been that certain RPAS sites were sanctioned in controlled airspace, in breach of the Exemption. We will not discuss here whether there was sufficient credible evidence that this actually took place. We will proceed here on the premiss that it did happen – because that, after all, is what Transport Canada and Nav Canada were led to believe happened – which then led them to realize that, in nearly four years, MAAC had recklessly neglected to ensure that they had suitable processes in place to ensure compliance with the Exemption’s conditions. The problem was never that transgressions took place – it was that MAAC had no reliable means of determining whether transgressions had taken place or not.
The stated objective of the shutdown was to convince the two controlling agencies that MAAC was serious about its responsibilities towards safety. It is extremely hard to imagine how a universal ban on all model flying in Canada was going to impress those two agencies of that. Transport Canada have made it very clear that their concern is with RPAS operating in controlled airspace, or within 3nm of an aerodrome that is not in controlled airspace. (NB. An RPAS is defined, by Transport Canada, as the combination of an RC model aircraft weighing more than 250g and its control system.) No other operations of RPAS, or any operations of non-RPAS model aircraft, are of any interest to Transport Canada. Banning the flying of Control Line and Free Flight models, or RC models under 250g, all of which fall outside the purview of Part IX of CARs or MAAC’s Exemption – or even the banning of flying of RPAS that are not operated in either of the situations specified by Transport Canada to be of concern – seems highly unlikely to impress anyone. In fact, this action seems more likely to reinforce the already established concern that MAAC did not have compliance with the conditions of the Exemption as a high priority but instead thought they could impress Transport Canada with an irrelevant, knee-jerk, reaction.
The total ban was announced to the membership on the 17th December, 2022. It was accompanied by the extraordinary admonition to the membership that they must keep this secret from anyone outside MAAC. This ridiculous demand, which was accompanied by threats that disclosure of the action could destroy MAAC as we know it, was made by the President, knowing full well that he had discussed it outside MAAC before even informing the membership. That information became public knowledge, when the contents of his conversation was made public within days. The public discussion of MAAC’s action, as revealed by the President, was probably the first that some MAAC members heard of it.
In his report, the President states that Nav Canada informed MAAC of the withdrawal of the “status quo” agreement on December 22nd, 2022, five days after MAAC had introduced its ban on all flying. That withdrawal, in the absence of the total ban, would have had the effect of enforcing those that were operating RPAS in controlled airspace to cease those operations until such time as they could obtain the permissions required under the auspices of the Exemption. The next blow apparently fell on February 3rd, 2023, when Transport Canada informed MAAC, by telephone, that the Exemption was no longer in effect. This did not ban the flying of RPAS – it simply meant that RPAS pilots had to take, and pass, an online test, and register any RPAS that they wished to fly, and they would then be free to fly their machines in uncontrolled airspace. Except that they couldn’t – because MAAC had issued its total ban. The dates on which these events took place seem to be rather confused. The Exemption stated that a revocation would become effective upon the date on which it was breached (which, according to some, occurred within days of its coming into effect, in 2019) or by written notice from the Director (the Minister of Transport or his delegate) – which didn’t happen until March 13th, 2023. A member of MAAC, who enquired directly of Transport Canada, was told in an email that the Exemption was revoked on December 9th, 2022. As we said – rather confused.
Clearly, the total ban had no effect upon the revocation of either the “status quo” agreement or the Exemption, so what did it achieve? According to the President the outdoor flying ban enabled MAAC to determine that there were RPAS sites it didn’t know about. Exactly how the ban on non-RPAS flying enabled that isn’t made clear. It is also claimed that MAAC was able to find out that there were club rules that still mentioned the AMA/MAAC reciprocal agreement (the first, baffling, casualty of MAAC’s inept response to the introduction of Part IX and the Exemption). Again – the connection between this and a total flying ban is not clear. These claimed benefits to MAAC of preventing everyone from flying – including those who fly categories that Transport Canada has no interest in – seem to us to be rather trivial in the overall scheme of things and, more importantly, could just as effectively have been achieved without such a ban.
So, what did the ban achieve? There are those within the leadership of MAAC who are determined to bring all model flying under the restrictions imposed by Transport Canada on the operation of RPAS. One of the excuses for this is that, in their sole and unsupported opinion, any incident involving those non-RPAS categories would negatively affect the privileges allowed to MAAC members who do fly RPAS (which privileges have now been revoked anyway). This has been specifically denied, in writing, by Transport Canada, in response to a question from a member of MAAC, and this Board has been made aware of that. Despite this knowledge, they continue to pursue their unwarranted, heavy-handed, over-reach into control over member’s activities that there is no justification for.
What Did the Prosecution of One Ex-Zone Director Achieve?
The admission of fault by MAAC’s leadership raises this question. We have seen that MAAC was of the opinion that multiple zone directors had committed similar transgressions – six of them if the report to the Board in March 2022 can be believed – yet only one was found guilty of anything and punished. So, what did that rush to judgment not achieve? It did not prevent the “status quo” agreement from being withdrawn, and it did not prevent the Exemption from being canceled. It seems highly unlikely that it would have impressed Nav Canada or Transport Canada of MAAC’s seriousness, or competence, in governing the operation of RPAS by its members.
What did it achieve? It removed a highly respected and long-serving member of MAAC and alienated him from the organization. This was a man who has an extensive history of promoting the hobby and helping others learn about and become successful in it. It could be feared that, as a result of this, future potential fliers might not learn the joys of model flight but this will probably not be the case. That ex-zone director will almost certainly continue to encourage newcomers and help to build their skills – it just won’t happen under the auspices of MAAC. As in so much that has been done by MAAC’s Board in recent years, MAAC will be the loser, not the man who was persecuted.
Conclusions.
While it is refreshing to see, at last, some admission of the fault that lies at the feet of the SAG, the TCAG, and the MAAC Board, for the catastrophe that has befallen MAAC – as we have shown, there is much more to this iceberg that was not revealed.
Many MAAC members have been subjected to hardships that were completely unnecessary. This loss of opportunity might seem relatively trivial to some, but for many it is very serious. There are those among us who are in what are euphemistically known as their ‘twilight’ years. They had looked forward to having the time to devote to the pastime that they loved once their other life responsibilities diminished. An unnecessary, enforced, prohibition on this activity, even for a few months, can be a huge loss when they know that time does not spread interminably before them. Those members would understand if the actions of the association had been truly necessary, they feel betrayed because the action was simply an attempt to deflect attention from the incompetence of the association’s leadership.
A well-respected member of MAAC, one who has a long history of not only serving the association in a directorial capacity, but has also actively encouraged new members to learn the joys of aeromodelling, has been defamed and suspended from membership. There was no credible evidence of wrongdoing on his part but it suited the MAAC leadership to create a scapegoat so that their own negligence might go unnoticed. That did not happen – the governing agency (Transport Canada) were not that naïve – but the member’s well-being was damaged severely anyway.
MAAC, under this leadership, is in a state of utter disarray. Most of the membership is completely unaware of the underlying reasons for this state of affairs. It is our intent, in recording these facts here, to enlighten MAAC’s membership on what is really going on, so that they can make informed decisions about how they want MAAC to be led in the future. The secrecy with which MAAC affairs is conducted continues to damage the association with each passing day. What you don’t know really CAN hurt you – badly.