Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he doesn’t regret ripping up a contract with SpaceX for Starlink internet earlier this year, despite the fact his government will now fail to meet its broadband target, partly as a result of that decision.
Earlier this year, the premier said he was ending a $100 million deal for Elon Musk’s satellite internet service in order to punish U.S. President Donald Trump, who was a close ally of Musk’s at the time, for his tariffs.
The provincial government eventually ended up paying SpaceX a break fee to end the contract early, before it ever provided internet to homes in rural and northern Ontario.
At least partly as a result of that decision, the government admitted last week it would miss its target of providing everyone with broadband by the end of 2025. The new target has been moved to 2028.
Asked whether it was a mistake to end the Starlink deal — one the government now appears unable to replace — Ford said he still believed he had made the correct decision.
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“No, I’m not going to support an individual like Elon Musk that was part of the group that wants to try to attack Canada and try to attack Ontario … no, I don’t regret it,” he said.
“I had two choices: either support one of Trump’s closest allies and friends — and I guess no longer a friend or no longer an ally — but I’m not going to support them.”
Cancelling the deal is part of the reason Ontario now won’t hit its goal, announced in 2021, of connecting every household in the province to high-speed internet by the end of 2025.
A government source previously told Global News there were no “feasible” alternatives to Starlink that the province could use. They said officials are working through other options, but none are yet ready.
Essentially, the source said, no other satellite internet options can take on the slack left by cancelling the Starlink deal, with alternatives like Rogers satellite utilizing Musk’s company’s resources.
Ontario Liberal MPP John Fraser criticized the government for signing the Starlink deal in the first place, but suggested it wasn’t a mistake to have eventually cancelled it.
“If the premier wasn’t in such a hurry to please Elon Musk and the president of the United States by signing the deal, he might have waited a little bit for Telesat (a Canadian company), and we’d be further ahead,” he said.
“He went too fast, he was a pleaser and then he had to rip it up and now we’re a year-and-a-half behind when there’s a Canadian company that’s ready to do this. They’re not quite as far advanced, but it might be better from a national security perspective, an Ontario security perspective, if we rely on a Canadian company to provide critical infrastructure.”
The broadband plan has also met with construction delays in remote parts of the province.
Many of the physical broadband expansion plans are in the hardest-to-reach parts of Ontario, with contractors encountering setbacks laying the fibre optic cables required to bring the rural areas online.
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