Image: Telesat
Conservative Member of Parliament Jamil Jivani pressed Canada’s Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner on Wednesday, October 28, over why Telesat CEO Dan Goldberg, whom Jivani called a longtime friend of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, is not named on the prime minister’s conflict of interest screen after Telesat won a $2.3 billion Arctic military satellite contract.
During the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics committee hearing, Jivani said Goldberg shares a running club and book club with Carney, attended his Rideau Hall swearing-in, and still is not listed as a relationship that would warrant a screen. He asked Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein why that was the case.
Von Finckenstein replied that the Conflict of Interest Act creates no obligation to list friends. He said he did not know what decision Jivani meant, whether Carney took part in it, or whether the existing screen already kept the prime minister out of the file, and he noted that screened decisions can show up in the next Privy Council Office report on the screen.
Ottawa’s Defence Investment Agency awarded the Enhanced Satellite Communications Project – Polar deal to Telesat LEO on August 4. The initial contract is valued at about $2.3 billion before tax for Military Ka-band Arctic coverage for the Canadian Armed Forces, with two option periods that can lift the total near $2.7 billion, and service is planned for early 2028 as Telesat expands its Lightspeed constellation from 156 to 225 satellites.
Carney said in September that Canada will diversify away from Starlink, framing sovereign Arctic links as part of a broader push to reduce reliance on a single foreign provider. SpaceX is still booked to loft many of those Lightspeed satellites on Falcon 9, so Canada has not escaped launch dependence on Elon Musk’s company even while it talks about dialing back Starlink for connectivity, a tension also laid out in Canada’s 2028 Falcon booking crunch.
The Conservative MP later posted the exchange and said he did not get an answer. The commissioner invited people with concrete details to write his office so he can decide whether anything further is required, leaving the Telesat file short of a finished ethics finding.
Will the next conflict-screen report, or a formal Ethics Commissioner review, settle whether Carney was walled off from the $2.3 billion Telesat award?
