Ontario Cancels Deal With Musk’s Starlink
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Ontario’s premier said his government is ending its contract with Starlink, the Elon Musk-controlled satellite company, following President Donald Trump’s executive order to impose tariffs on goods imported from Canada.
“We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract with Starlink. Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy,” Premier Doug Ford said in an emailed statement.
The government also will ban U.S. companies from provincial contracts until the tariffs are removed, and Ford urged cities and other local governments to do the same at an event in Toronto on Feb. 3.
Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, said in November it had signed Starlink to launch a program offering high-speed satellite internet access to rural and remote communities, beginning in June 2025. The Starlink deal was worth nearly C$100 million ($68.3 million), with the province to pay for installation and equipment fees, a member of Ford’s government said at the time.
Starting today and until U.S. tariffs are removed, Ontario is banning American companies from provincial contracts.
Every year, the Ontario government and its agencies spend $30 billion on procurement, alongside our $200 billion plan to build Ontario. U.S.-based businesses will… — Doug Ford (@fordnation) February 3, 2025
Ford told reporters he believed Ontario would prevail in any court challenge about the contract because the U.S. violated the terms of the North American trade deal when Trump announced the tariffs.
“I don’t care if there’s a fine or whatever, but I think we’re going to win it,” Ford said of any potential challenge. Starlink did not reply to a request for comment.
Ford’s move follows other retaliatory measures taken by Canadian leaders after Trump launched a trade broadside against Canada, Mexico and China on Feb. 1, putting tariffs on their goods. The president’s order places 25% levies on almost everything the U.S. imports from Canada, except energy, for which the tariff is 10%, starting Feb. 4.
Several provinces, including Ontario and Quebec, are removing U.S. products from liquor stores they control. Quebec will begin adding a 25% levy on all U.S. bids for its public contracts, the province’s economy minister, Christine Frechette, told Radio-Canada.
In Ottawa, government staff gave more details Feb. 2 on how Canada will bring in 25% counter-tariffs against more than 1,200 categories of U.S. products within days.
The first phase will touch about C$30 billion of goods from U.S. exporters, including orange juice, peanut butter, wine, coffee, motorcycles and cosmetics. A much larger list of U.S.-manufactured products — cars and trucks, steel, aluminum, beef and boats, among other items — will be subject to tariffs later in February after a 21-day consultation period.
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Ford reiterated Feb. 3 that curbing energy exports to the U.S. remains a “tool in our toolbox” but that he hoped it would be unnecessary. The electricity sector in Canada is managed by the provinces and some of them, including Ontario, export power to the U.S.
Private companies have also begun feeling the effects of the tariff war. Irving Oil Ltd., a refiner based in the eastern Canadian province of New Brunswick, is notifying some customers in New Hampshire that the cost of the tariffs will be added to their propane prices once they go into effect, Bloomberg reported.
If the trade war continues, Canada is likely to face the most severe economic shock since the COVID-19 pandemic and will probably sink into a recession, top economists say.
