Ontario Premier Doug Ford said he is cancelling a nearly $100 million contract with U.S. satellite internet provider Starlink as part of the province’s response to U.S. tariffs, as well as banning all American companies from future provincial contracts.
“We’ll be ripping up the province’s contract with Starlink. Ontario won’t do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy,” Ford, who is in the middle of an election campaign, wrote in a post on the social media platform X on Feb. 3.
In addition to ending the contract with Starlink, Ford said Ontario is banning American companies from provincial contracts. He noted that the Ontario government and its agencies collectively spend $30 billion annually on procurement, in addition to a $200 billion plan for infrastructure development.
Starlink and its parent company, SpaceX, are owned by Elon Musk, who is an adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump and oversees the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency in cooperation with the administration.
Ontario first announced the contract with Starlink last November, after the company won a competitive bid to provide satellite internet to the province. Originally scheduled to launch in June 2025, the service was set to utilize Starlink’s low-Earth orbit technology to deliver internet to 15,000 rural and remote customers.
SpaceX logo and Elon Musk photo in this illustration taken on Dec. 19, 2022. Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters
The Epoch Times reached out to SpaceX for comment, but did not hear back immediately.
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In reacting to the news of Ford’s decision on his social media platform X on Feb. 3, Musk shared a link to a news article on the contract cancellation, simply captioning the post, “Oh well.”
Ford’s move is part of Canada’s response to Trump’s decision to impose a 25 percent tariff on most Canadian goods and a 10 percent tariff on Canadian energy exports, set to take effect on Feb. 4.
Several other provinces, including B.C., Nova Scotia, and Manitoba, have also said they are considering banning American companies from provincial projects or procurement.
Trump has cited border security concerns in his decision to impose the tariffs on both Canada and Mexico, particularly the flow of illicit drugs and illegal migrants over their borders into the United States. Trump is also imposing an additional 10 percent tariff on China, on top of existing levies, due to concerns about the flow of synthetic opioids and their precursors coming into the United States from China.
Canada has announced a phased retaliatory tariff targeting $155 billion worth of American imports in response. The first phase will impose tariffs on $30 billion of goods originating from the United States, set to take effect on Feb. 4, covering items from meat and crops to lumber, firearms, and machinery. The remaining $125 billion will be imposed in the coming weeks to give Canadian businesses time to adjust to the impact.
These measures will remain in place until the United States removes its tariffs on Canadian products, the department of finance said in a Feb. 2 press release.
