Image: Starlink
Ottawa’s contract with SpaceX Canada has grown to nearly 13 times its original value, even as Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada won’t tie its defenses to a billionaire’s satellites.
A federal contract record shows Shared Services Canada’s deal with SpaceX Canada Corp. now stands at C$28,941,731, up from C$2.26 million when it was signed.
Shared Services Canada, the department that runs the federal government’s IT and network infrastructure, awarded the contract on November 29, 2023. The record lists it as communications and network services, and says it came out of an advance contract award notice. Only one bid was received, and the government cited the trade exception that “only one person is capable of performing the contract.”
That original deal was set to run from October 2023 to October 2025. A series of amendments has since pushed the value and the timeline well past that:
The C$17.2 million amendment is the largest single jump on the record, adding more than seven times the original contract value in one step. The most recent change trimmed the total slightly and keeps the end date at March 31, 2027.
None of the entries say which Starlink plans or hardware the money covers, or which departments use the service.
Carney’s recent comments make the numbers stand out. In an interview recorded in Montreal on October 30, he said: “Now we are not, we have not hooked our dependencies to that system, our defenses to that system nor would we given the track record.”
Earlier, on October 23 in Istanbul, Carney said the slowdown of Starshield in Ukraine had real human costs. “We as Canadians do not want to be caught in a situation where we are relying on one provider that may change their view or may be forced to change their view by one nation state, that puts Canadians at risk or compromises our sovereignty,” he said at the time.
Ottawa is backing Canadian alternatives, including Telesat’s Lightspeed network, while its own satellites still need SpaceX rockets by 2028. US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra has also said Canada chose to close its market to SpaceX.
For Canadians in rural and remote areas, a Starlink Standard kit or the portable Starlink Mini remains one of the few high-speed options available today.
Should Ottawa keep expanding its Starlink spending while it builds a Canadian alternative?
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