Doug Ford tears up $100 million contract with Elon Musk's Starlink

During a press conference on March 4, Ontario Premier Doug Ford clarified that Ontario is no longer working with Elon Musk's Starlink.

After threatening to pull the deal a few times, Ford has stepped up after Trump implemented tariffs on Canadian trade and called off the Starlink internet deal. This deal was worth $100 million.

"As part of this government-wide procurement ban, we're going one step further. We're ripping up Ontario's contract with Starlink. It's done, it's gone. We won't award contracts to people who enable and encourage economic attacks on our country," said Ford at his press conference.

Ontario and Starlink signed a deal in late 2024 to connect 15,000 Ontario residents, but since Elon Musk has become so tightly tied to President Trump, it became an obvious choice to cut the deal and move instead to a Canadian business.

While it's not as popular as Starlink, Xplore (previously XploreNet) also submitted a proposal and is a Canadian business, so there is a chance that it will take over the deal. Hopefully, it will still connect 15,000 remote Canadians to the internet.