Insider Brief
- Ontario canceled a $68.5 million contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink in response to new U.S. tariffs imposed by Donald Trump, The Guardian is reporting.
- Premier Doug Ford said Ontario will ban U.S. companies from provincial contracts until the tariffs are lifted, warning of economic losses for American businesses.
- The cancellation disrupts plans to provide rural internet access, leaving uncertainty over how Ontario will fill the coverage gap.
Ontario’s premier is canceling a $68.5 million contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink in response to new U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods, according to The Guardian.
Experts are wondering whether escalating trade tensions between the two countries will have any other fallout for the space industry.
Premier Doug Ford announced Monday that his government would “rip up” the deal with Starlink, the satellite internet provider owned by Musk’s SpaceX, following former U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order to impose 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports. The contract, signed in November, was intended to deliver high-speed internet to 15,000 homes and businesses in rural and remote areas of Ontario by mid-2025.

““We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract with Starlink,” Ford said in a post on X, as reported in The Guardian. “Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy.”
Ford’s decision adds to a broader Canadian response against Trump’s trade policy, which also includes retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods. The premier warned that American businesses could lose “tens of billions of dollars” in new revenues due to Ontario’s retaliation, and he vowed to exclude U.S. companies from provincial contracts until the tariffs are lifted.
The move disrupts Ontario’s broadband expansion plans, which relied on Starlink’s satellite network to reach remote communities, the newspaper reports. The province’s infrastructure agency had determined in early 2023 that only two companies — Starlink and Canada-based Xplore Inc. — could meet its coverage needs. Starlink won the contract after a competitive bidding process.
Trump announced the tariffs on Saturday as part of a broader trade policy targeting Canada, Mexico and China. His plan calls for 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports and 10% on Chinese goods. Canadian officials quickly pledged countermeasures. Mexico also announced retaliatory tariffs on American products.
Musk, who has aligned himself with Trump in recent months, now serves as an adviser to the administration’s newly created “department of government efficiency” (DOGE). Ford did not cite Musk’s political involvement as a reason for canceling the contract, instead pointing to the broader economic impact of Trump’s tariffs.
The contract cancellation raises questions about Ontario’s broadband strategy, The Guardian reports. While Ford’s government has committed to expanding rural internet access, the removal of Starlink from the plan leaves a gap in coverage. It remains unclear whether Xplore, the only other qualified provider, will be able to scale up to fill the void or whether Ontario will seek alternative solutions.
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