Ontario Ministers Defend Secret SpaceX Payout Over Cancelled Starlink Deal

Ontario ministers are defending the province’s decision to keep its payout to SpaceX over a cancelled Starlink contract secret, as opposition critics question why the amount was absent from Ontario’s latest financial statements, the Canadian Press reported.

Several members of Premier Doug Ford’s cabinet said the government had public support to cancel the $100-million satellite broadband internet deal last year, arguing that revealing the kill fee would undermine the province’s competitive position.

In late 2024, then-infrastructure minister Kinga Surma announced the agreement with SpaceX to provide Starlink internet to 15,000 customers, largely in remote First Nations and rural Ontario.

The Canadian Press reported in March that the kill fee would remain secret after Ontario and SpaceX negotiated a confidential settlement. The province has said the fee is “significantly less than the contract value.”

When Ontario released its public accounts, covering everything spent between April 1, 2025 and March 31, 2026, neither SpaceX nor Starlink appeared in the audited statements.

Surma, now president of the Treasury Board, said, “Look, the taxpayers were clear in the election that they didn’t want us to pursue that option. We respected the taxpayer, the deal was cancelled and we continued to connect people to broadband across the province.”

She added, “Those financials that are included in SpaceX are confidential and will remain so.”

Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce said, “There was a commercially sensitive nature of that negotiation with the company and I have to respect that. Now we’re looking for a domestic, sovereign, low-orbiting satellite technology that ideally is Canadian, certainly not owned by Mr. Musk.”

New Democrat Jessica Bell said Ford made a decision “possibly without considering the consequences and the costs of that decision, and now here we are a year later and we’re wondering how much was the kill fee.”

Liberal finance critic Stephanie Bowman asked, “Where is that money? How much was it? And why is the government hiding it in the public accounts?”

Noah Jarvis of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said, “Taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent, if they’re getting value for money for this and just how much the government is paying SpaceX to not do work.”

Tesla North covered the confidential settlement in March, after Ontario cancelled the Starlink deal over the U.S. trade war. Prime Minister Mark Carney has since said Canada will ditch Starlink.

With the payout still confidential and absent from the public accounts, opposition parties say they will continue pressing the government for the amount when the legislature returns.