Can you legally jam or shoot down a drone in Canada?
The short answer is no. Here's the long one.
No. Jamming radiocommunication is prohibited under the Radiocommunication Act, and a drone is legally an aircraft — interfering with an aircraft in flight is an offence under the Aeronautics Act. Shooting at one adds firearms offences and liability for whatever the falling drone hits. Bill C-15 now lets Transport Canada authorize certain entities to interdict drones, but that authorization does not extend to private individuals. What you can lawfully do: detect, document, and report.
The short answer, expanded
Every few weeks, somewhere in Canada, a property owner looks up at a hovering drone and reaches one of two conclusions: buy a jammer, or get the shotgun. Both end worse for the property owner than for the drone operator.
Jammers are illegal to use — and to import, sell, or possess for use. Devices that interfere with radiocommunication are prohibited under the Radiocommunication Act, and the prohibition doesn't carve out "but it was over my yard." The jammer you can find online ships from jurisdictions with different rules; using it here is an offence regardless of where it was purchased.
A drone is an aircraft in law. That sentence does most of the work in this article. Interfering with an aircraft in flight is an offence under the Aeronautics Act — the same body of law that made Bill C-15 necessary in the first place. Shooting at a drone stacks additional exposure on top: careless use or unsafe discharge of a firearm under the Criminal Code, discharge bylaws in any populated area, and civil liability for the drone itself and for wherever several hundred grams to several kilograms of it lands.
"But it was over my property" is weaker than it feels. Canadian law does not give a landowner control of the airspace above their parcel to unlimited height, and the drone above your yard may be operating entirely legally under the Canadian Aviation Regulations. It may also be violating them — or violating your privacy — but the remedy for that is enforcement and complaint, not self-help against an aircraft.
What changed with Bill C-15 — and what didn't
On March 26, 2026, Bill C-15 received royal assent. It updates the Aeronautics Act to more clearly prohibit unlawful interference with drone operations and enables Transport Canada to issue authorizations to certain entities to interdict drones that present security risks. Read both halves. The first half means the prohibition on taking matters into your own hands is now clearer, not looser. The second half creates a lawful interdiction pathway — for authorized entities, anticipated to be law enforcement and similar agencies, under regulations still being developed. Nothing in the framework contemplates private individuals downing drones over their homes. Read the Bill C-15 pillar · follow the regulation tracker.
What you can lawfully do instead
If you're a homeowner: document (video of the drone, times, dates, patterns — repeated incidents matter), and report. Persistent surveillance-like behaviour is a matter for local police; suspected unsafe or non-compliant flying can be reported to Transport Canada. Voyeurism, harassment, and mischief laws apply to drone operators the same as anyone else — the aircraft doesn't launder the behaviour.
If you're an organization: detection is fully lawful today. Detection systems establish what is actually in your airspace, alert in real time, and — with RF-decoding systems and common commercial drones — locate the operator, which converts an incident into something police can act on while the pilot is still standing in a parking lot. Organizations that may qualify for interdiction authorization as the Bill C-15 regulations mature should be building that groundwork now. See the technology explainer.