Ontario's cancellation of Starlink contract could impact millions of Canadians

Ongoing geopolitical tensions between Canada and the U.S. put Starlink in the crosshairs, potentially impacting 2 million Canadians.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford threatened to cancel the government’s $100 million Starlink deal with the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, but paused retaliatory measures against the U.S. amid the Canadian and U.S. government’s agreement to pause tariffs against one another for 30 days. 

With that, Ookla, known for its global broadband speed tests, researched what would happen if Starlink were cancelled in Ontario and other parts of Canada.

According to Ookla's Speedtest Intelligence data of Starlink users in Canada, roughly two million Canadians would feel the effect of Starlink's disappearance. Ookla extrapolated the number based on the share of Speedtests Canadians performed using Starlink.

This would highly affect people in Nunavut, where 44 percent of Speedtests were performed using Starlink, indicating a significant portion of internet users rely on the service.

Following that, many people in the Northwest Territories and Yukon could also lose access to the internet.

When Doug Ford threatened to pause its Starlink deal in Ontario, it seemed it would only affect around 4.9 percent of internet users in the province.

This makes sense, as most of Ontario’s population lives in urban areas like Toronto. However, if the whole country banned Starlink, many in rural areas would suffer. And potentially more than we realize.