Canada’s plans to reduce its reliance on Starlink are being tied to the development of Telesat Lightspeed, but the alternative satellite network is still years away from full service.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said in an interview with the New York Times published Wednesday that Canada will move away from Elon Musk’s satellite internet service. “Starlink, we will diversify away from, no question,” Carney said, as part of a wider push to cut Canada’s economic and strategic dependence on the United States (via Tesla North).
Carney suggested Canada could work with European and Korean partners to build enough scale.
U.S. investor MHR Fund Management owns 35.5% of Telesat, while SpaceX is contracted to carry out the 14 Falcon 9 launches required to deploy the constellation. Ottawa has committed $1.44 billion in loans and equity to Lightspeed, and a $2.3 billion defence contract signed in August added 69 more satellites, bringing the planned network to 225.
Ontario has also previously moved away from Starlink. Doug Ford’s government cancelled its $100 million Starlink deal in March 2025 over U.S. tariffs, later reaching a confidential settlement with a “kill fee” the province said was significantly less than the contract value.
Meanwhile, the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan invested about $300 million in SpaceX in 2019. That stake was worth US$8.7 billion at June 30, a 29-fold gain the Financial Post called a “significant contributor” to the fund’s 9.5% first-half return.
Starlink currently has more than 500,000 Canadian users. The first Lightspeed launches are not expected until 2026, with global service targeted for early 2028. Until then, it remains unclear what service would replace Starlink for Canadian customers.
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A very Canadian reaction. The political leaders gain votes by acting tough, with decisions that end up hurting Canadians (with inferior service in this case), mostly to make a point or send a message to a party that won’t be hurt by it and might even benefit from it, while the monied class (of which the political leadership is almost always a part of) continues to profit by ignoring the political whims and decisions.
I’m with starlinks exactly because I don’t want to do business with Canadian Telco and Canadian red tape , my only exception to my USA made boycott
Do you continue to use gps, Microsoft products or the internet?
Then LEAVE! go south to maga
Goodbye, we’re not stooges & fodder to Starlink, ask Zelenskyy how that is going
The Canadian politician clown show continues. Bluster and no substance is the normal. Destruction of Canada is incidental if they can get votes from stupid people.
Canada is a synthetic country made up of a couple real countries and a few atellites who’s populations fit in neighborhoods of my Metro city
Fk Starlink, Musk & Trump …#clown P/off
You’re the friggin clown, go south & f*** off …. sick of you people
Canadian and starlink consumer since better then nothing beta, you cannot do a “Canadian Starlink” or any other “National starlinks” to do that you need geostationary satellites and therefore kill the LEO advantage that starlinks enjoys with its constellation , starlinks is good because , 3.5 mS VS 240 mS RTT (Round Trip Time) , 60 to 150x the propagation delay , and no you can’t “fix physics” , so geostationary satellites that would cover Canada coast to coast are going to suck. not even mentioning it already exist and hardly sells because it’s expensive for what it is
Why do you want off Starlink? Starlink has changed the game for so many people in Rural Canada who had NO OPTIONS FOR BROADBAND INTERNET FOR DECADES. They now have Internet that is just as fast and accessible as living in an Urban Center like Toronto, Winnipeg, and Edmonton.
It makes no sense that something so innovative is being vilified by the Liberal Canadian Government when it has brought access and connectivity to those in the most isolated parts of Canada.
Very simple explanation. They’d rather hurt and punish Canadians in order to score some points by spitting a US company than to provide acceptable service to Canadians.
Providing starlink would benefit Canadians but wouldn’t benefit the Libs since it would just be expected. Those rural Canadians are unlikely to vote carney anyway, so screwing them over costs nothing and buys more anti-US votes.
Liberals don’t like what they cannot control, or those who disagree with them. Elon is very much not a Liberal, so they hate him.
Here is why, another conflict – Carney’s $2.3B Telesat deal reignites scrutiny over CEO friend, lobbying loopholes and ethics rules
Conveniently the guy who owns or runs Telesat is a friend of his. And Carney has already laundered tax money to him.
Canadians want off Carney, but the globalist parasitism persists.