SPECIAL REPORT: Carney wants less reliance on Starlink, and the Canadian rival will fly on SpaceX rockets

An antenna on a roof

September 23, a promise

Mark Carney promised the New York Times on September 23, 2026 that Canada would reduce its reliance on Starlink, even as the Canadian rival Ottawa is betting on is set to fly into space on SpaceX rockets.

Two truths. They fit in the same sentence. They don’t quite contradict each other.

There is a white antenna on thousands of Canadian roofs. More than 500,000 subscribers across the country, according to Starlink, which crossed that mark in July 2025.

There is the country road where the cable never arrived. The storm that snaps the wires. And the antenna on the roof that still picks up a signal.

There is, in Nunavut, a dog-sled musher Starlink put in the spotlight. The service changed their lives in the territory, she says, according to Drive Tesla Canada.

Where nothing else gets through

For rural residents, Starlink is hard to beat, MobileSyrup notes. The service is already built into Rogers’ satellite offering.

A year before the 500,000 mark, the service had just under 400,000 subscribers in Canada, according to Drive Tesla Canada. Growth of about 25% in a year.

A roof. An antenna. A subscription.

These are the people this is about first. Not Musk. Not Carney.

A subscriber doesn’t think in geopolitics. A subscriber thinks in signal bars. In the call that goes through. In the bill that arrives.

An antenna on a roof, and a whole country under it.

Diversify, no question

The prime minister’s line

“Starlink, we will diversify away from, no question,” Mark Carney told the Times, according to MobileSyrup.

He did not say leave. He said diversify. A careful prime minister picks his verbs. This one picked the most flexible.

He also acknowledged that the other satellite options are not as good.

But from a defense standpoint, and by pooling capabilities with other partners, he said, you can “get to scale and cut that dependency.” He named the Europeans. The Koreans, perhaps.

One dependence among others

The Times presents the interview as a detailed plan to reduce Canada’s reliance on American technology. From satellites to fighter jets. The goal, the paper writes: to make the country far less vulnerable to American threats.

With China, he talks economics. Not defense, the Times specifies.

Even under another president, Canada will be a better partner for the United States because of what it is doing now, he argues.

In the same interview he also raised the extreme risk of American military action, but that is another story.

Here, the question is simpler. Who holds the switch above our heads?

One sentence, one word: diversify. The word is careful. It leaves the antenna on the roof.

Diversifying is not unplugging.

Crimea, remembered

Coverage refused

The Times recalls why the line is no whim.

Mark Carney pointed to past disruptions. And to Elon Musk’s reluctance to extend Starlink coverage to Russian-occupied Crimea during a Ukrainian counterattack on a Crimean port, MobileSyrup reports.

One owner. One decision. A counterattack by the invaded country, left hanging on a businessman’s goodwill.

It was not an outage. It was a choice.

Nothing in this file shows a cutoff in Canada. The episode shows something else. An owner can say no. Elsewhere. To a partner.

Who pays for an outage

We stand with those who pay for an outage. The rural subscriber. The soldier in the North. The Ukrainian ally.

We stand against a sky controlled by a single owner, because that owner has already refused to extend his network during a Ukrainian counterattack.

We stand against a promise with no timetable, because the Canadian solution depends on that same owner too.

The Canadian rival will lift off on Musk’s rockets.

A borrowed sky can be taken back without warning.

Fourteen Falcon 9 rockets

The 2023 contract

On September 11, 2023, Telesat and SpaceX announced a launch agreement. Telesat booked 14 launches on the Falcon 9 rocket.

Each flight is to carry up to 18 Lightspeed satellites into low Earth orbit. The campaign was to begin in 2026.

The rocket will leave from California. The rocket will leave from Florida. From SpaceX facilities, the release specifies.

Telesat’s chief executive, Dan Goldberg, spoke at the time of the most ambitious program in the company’s 54 years. SpaceX had already launched its geostationary satellites, he noted.

SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said she was proud to launch the Canadian constellation.

Lightspeed was designed for businesses and governments, Telesat said, with secure, resilient links anywhere in the world.

A dependence that climbs aboard

This is the central paradox. To get out of Musk’s orbit, Canada first has to go through his launch pads.

iPhone in Canada puts it plainly: SpaceX is to carry out the 14 launches needed to deploy the constellation.

Fourteen flights. Eighteen satellites each, at most. Two American launch sites.

The rocket switches nothing off once the satellite is in orbit. It only has to leave on time.

And yet a waiting line at a single carrier is also a form of dependence.

To leave, you need the neighbor’s launch pad.

225 satellites made in Montreal

The August 4 contract

Here is what is actually being built.

On August 4, 2026, the Defence Investment Agency awarded Telesat an initial contract worth about C$2.3 billion. It includes two options, of about C$214 million and C$218 million.

The contract covers the Arctic. The contract covers other high-latitude regions. The contract covers the defense of Canada and North America with NORAD. The contract covers operations with allies. The contract covers search and rescue.

Secure military communications, for the Canadian Armed Forces.

The contract lets Telesat add 69 satellites to its constellation. It goes from 156 satellites already in production to 225.

MDA, in its own plant

The satellites will be built by MDA Space at its Montreal plant, the government specifies.

Ottawa expects up to 2,600 jobs created or maintained each year, and C$335 million a year added to GDP, over about seven years.

Secure, sovereign communications are essential to operating in the North, said Jamie Speiser-Blanchet, who commands the Royal Canadian Air Force.

Ottawa had already committed C$1.44 billion in loans and equity to Lightspeed, iPhone in Canada recalls.

The strategic partnership between the government, Telesat and MDA Space dates from December 9, 2025. A first contract, worth C$2.92 million, paid for the options analysis.

A second constellation, in medium Earth orbit, is planned for the UHF and X bands. MDA Space will be the prime contractor, Telesat the subcontractor.

Sixty-nine more satellites. Built in Montreal. Made possible by a federal contract.

This is not a promise. It is a plant running.

Building at home is the only exit that holds.

An American shareholder

Thirty-five and a half

You have to look at who owns the rival.

The American fund MHR Fund Management holds 35.5% of Telesat, according to iPhone in Canada.

A satellite built in Montreal. Launched by SpaceX. In a company with a big block of American-held shares.

Nothing illegal. Nothing secret. But nothing simple either.

Telesat signs its press releases in Ottawa. Its capital crosses the border.

An American block. An American launcher. A Canadian bet.

The other options

MobileSyrup lists the solutions in the works. Terrestar and Telesat, in Canada. Bell and Telus, which are turning to AST SpaceMobile.

And Amazon Leo, which could become an option. But it too is American.

So diversifying often means switching American suppliers. That beats having just one. It is not yet independence.

Changing suppliers doesn’t always mean changing countries.

Starlink works

The subscriber’s argument

The strongest objection does not come from Musk. It comes from the country road.

Starlink works, and works well. Carney himself admits the other options perform worse.

Why pay more, or wait years, for a worse service?

The question is legitimate. It deserves better than a slogan.

In the city, the debate stays abstract. In the countryside, it is measured in megabits.

Defense, not the living room

The prime minister is not talking about tearing antennas off roofs. He is talking about defense, and about pooling with allies.

The August 4 contract is aimed at the Armed Forces, not at family living rooms.

And Crimea answers the rest. An excellent service, controlled by one man, can stop at the worst possible moment.

In other words, quality does not settle the question of control.

And yet the objection keeps a share of truth. Until another service gets a signal as well, the rural subscriber has no other choice.

A good service can still have a bad master.

Ontario’s precedent

C$100 million canceled

Now for the fact that cuts against us.

In November 2024, Ontario signed a C$100 million contract with Starlink. It was to connect about 15,000 rural and northern homes under Ontario’s satellite internet program, Tesla North recalls.

In March 2025, Doug Ford’s government canceled it in retaliation for Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Musk replied on social media in two words. A shrug.

A secret termination fee

Ontario reached a confidential settlement with SpaceX. The termination fees were well below the value of the contract, was all the province would say.

Treasury Board President Kinga Surma still refuses to disclose the cost, according to Global News as cited by Tesla North.

That is what sovereignty cost that time. Rural homes without the promised connection. A bill kept secret.

Fifteen thousand homes. A political gesture. A hidden amount.

The contract was meant to serve people the cable doesn’t reach. They are the ones who waited while the province broke it off.

It is true, and it does not change this: diversifying is not canceling. You add before you take away.

Unplugging first makes rural Canada pay.

Teachers made twenty-nine times their money

A 2019 stake

The sharpest paradox is Ontarian too.

The plan invested about $300 million in SpaceX in 2019. That is the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, through its growth equity arm.

SpaceX was then valued at about US$33.3 billion, Tesla North specifies.

As of June 30, the stake was worth about US$8.7 billion, according to Tesla North, citing a US regulatory filing. A gain of roughly twenty-nine times the original stake.

The 9.5% return

In August, the plan announced a net return of 9.5% for the first half. SpaceX, now listed on the NASDAQ, was a significant contributor, the plan itself writes.

It was the first investment of its growth equity arm. The plan pays pensions to 346,000 active and retired members.

So Ontario teachers are counting on the value of the company their province dumped. And whose weight Ottawa wants to reduce.

Three hundred million at the start. Nearly US$8.7 billion on June 30. One bet.

Nobody is wrong here. Everybody is tied in.

Our pensions rise with the rocket we want to leave.

On the ice, in Nunavut

A lifeline

Back to the antenna. But farther north.

In the Far North, reliable communication can save a life, says the musher Starlink featured, according to Drive Tesla Canada.

The August 4 military contract also speaks of search and rescue in the Arctic. And of better awareness of what goes on there.

Minister David McGuinty promised secure, resilient and reliable connectivity there, where military personnel need it most.

On the ice, there is no second network. On the ice, there is the wind, and the cold that bites your fingers.

And the screen that picks up a signal. Or doesn’t.

One man overhead

I’ll admit it: this is where the question stops being technical for me. A family on the sea ice depends on a network whose owner has already refused to extend coverage for a partner’s army.

Nothing says he will say no to anyone in Canada. But nothing stops him.

In the North, a subscriber has no backup plan.

The antenna on a roof in the south is a comfort. The antenna on a sled in the north is a lifeline.

No one should own a lifeline alone.

2028 at the earliest

The real timeline

Now, the timeline.

The first Lightspeed launches are not expected before 2026, and global service is targeted for early 2028, iPhone in Canada writes.

In 2023, Telesat was promising global service in 2027, and enterprise-grade connectivity by the end of that year.

A year has already slipped.

2027, they said. 2028, they say now. And then what?

The military contract, for its part, is to deliver its services earlier than planned, according to Dan Goldberg. Years earlier, he says.

And until then

Until then, nothing says which service would replace Starlink for Canadian subscribers, iPhone in Canada notes.

Tesla North asks the same question. How far will diversification go, and what will replace Starlink where Canada depends on it?

Two trade outlets. The same missing answer.

Neither cites a replacement timeline for the general public.

The promise is running ahead of the constellation.

Build first, then connect

The order of the steps

Here is our position, at the end of the file.

Carney’s promise is right in substance. A country that depends on a single owner for its military sky is not sovereign.

It is incomplete in form. No public date. No costed plan for subscribers. A national solution that will lift off on Musk’s rockets.

The right order does exist. It has even started.

The head of the Defence Investment Agency, Doug Guzman, presents the August 4 contract as the Build pillar of a three-step approach: build, partner, buy.

Build. Partner. Buy. In that order, it is a doctrine. Out of order, it is a dependence.

What can still be saved

Build first: 225 satellites in Montreal. Share next: scale with the Europeans and the Koreans, as Carney said. Connect last, without tearing down a single antenna before the other one picks up a signal.

That would be real diversification. Not an announcement.

A sound promise. A plan still missing.

The rest is up to Ottawa. A timeline. Numbers. A plan for the North.

The 346,000 members of the teachers’ plan, meanwhile, are already profiting from the rocket. The paradox will remain intact.

Winter forgives only those who build before they unplug.

Who holds the switch

The antenna on the roof

The white antenna will stay on roofs well after the end of this year.

And yet it no longer means the same thing. It used to pick up a service. Now it signals a dependence.

The Canadian rival, for its part, is waiting its turn on an American launch pad.

The price we accept

What price are we willing to pay, in speed and in dollars, so that no foreign owner can switch off our sky?

The answer will not come from an interview. It will come from a timeline. Canada has the plant. It is missing the date.

Until then, the rockets will lift off from California and Florida.

Cutting the dependence starts with fourteen SpaceX launches.

Sources:

Primary Sources:

• The New York Times — Mark Carney’s interview on reliance on the United States, September 23, 2026
• Defence Investment Agency — the C$2.3 billion Telesat contract, August 4, 2026
• Telesat — the 14-launch agreement with SpaceX, background, September 11, 2023

Secondary Sources:

• MobileSyrup — Carney on diversifying away from Starlink, September 25, 2026
• iPhone in Canada — Lightspeed still years away, September 24, 2026
• Tesla North — Ontario, Starlink and the teachers’ stake, September 24, 2026