Stephen Lecce, Ontario Minister of Energy and Mines, speaks at a Toronto press conference as Premier Doug Ford looks on, in April. Mr. Lecce said Wednesday that the province was now aiming to find a Canadian company to replace Starlink.Arlyn McAdorey/The Canadian Press
The Ontario government says it has agreed with satellite internet provider Starlink – owned by billionaire Elon Musk – on the terms to end a $92-million contract with the company that Premier Doug Ford had vowed to rip up during his winter re-election campaign in retaliation for U.S. tariffs. But the province would not reveal how much taxpayers will have to pay to get out of the deal.
Ontario Minister of Energy and Mines, Stephen Lecce, whose department was overseeing the contract, confirmed on Wednesday that talks to end it had finished and that the province was now aiming to find a Canadian company to replace Starlink. He declined to say how much the cancellation cost.
Speaking to reporters at an unrelated event in Toronto and asked whether taxpayers had a right to know how their money was being spent, Mr. Lecce replied: “I can confirm that the Premier has fulfilled his word, which is to cancel that contract because of the very reasons he cited.”
Back in February, as U.S. President Donald Trump ratcheted up his tariff threats, Mr. Ford – after at first declining to kill the deal – vowed that he would scrap a contract with Starlink signed late last year to provide subsidized high-speed internet access to 15,000 homes in remote parts of the province, including First Nations communities.
The Premier said he did not want to do business with Mr. Musk, who was then a prominent ally of the U.S. President and whom Mr. Ford accused of being “hell-bent on destroying our economy.”
As the size of Mr. Trump’s tariff threats wavered, Mr. Ford put off the cancellation but later confirmed he was going ahead. Mr. Ford said in March he did not know how big a penalty or “kill fee” Ontario would have to pay Starlink. The service would have started in June.
A senior government source acknowledged on Wednesday that there is a kill fee negotiated between the parties but said it is covered by a confidentiality clause. The source said the amount is substantially lower than the total value the contract. The Globe and Mail is not identifying the source as they were not authorized to speak publicly about the deal.
The source also said the government had contemplated the extraordinary move of passing legislation to retroactively undo the contract and erase any obligation to pay Starlink, but it was deemed unnecessary as the parties were able to come to a deal. (Mr. Ford’s Progressive Conservatives had previously passed legislation that could erase a contract, aimed at ending the monopoly of the brewery-owned Beer Store chain, but backed off enacting it amid warnings of a chilled business climate.)
Opinion: Canada must plan for life without Elon Musk’s Starlink
Ontario Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie, who had long called for the deal’s cancellation because of Mr. Musk’s well-known links to Mr. Trump, said Ontarians need to know how much ending it has cost them.
“If Doug Ford is going to pay Elon Musk to get himself out of this mess, then we deserve to know how much,” she said in an e-mailed statement.
When Mr. Ford first threatened to pull the contract in February, Mr. Musk himself issued a muted response on his social-media website X: “Oh well.”
The world’s richest man and chief executive of electric-vehicle maker Tesla Inc. has since fallen out and publicly feuded with the U.S. President.
A copy of the Ontario contract, which was signed with a subsidiary of Starlink’s parent company called SpaceX Canada Corp., was obtained by The Globe via a freedom-of-information request. But the redacted document does not include details about the kill fee.
Starlink already provides satellite internet in Ontario outside of this program, and this service is unaffected by the cancellation.
The contract was awarded after a competitive procurement that saw Starlink beat out another shortlisted firm, Markham, Ont.-based Xplore Inc., which has faced financial problems and went through tense legal negotiations with its creditors last year. The company later closed a $1.6-billion recapitalizing arrangement.
According to lobbying records, Xplore sought funds in January from Quebec, just weeks before that province signaled it would let its three-year, $130-million contract to subsidize Starlink access expire. Previously, the Quebec government had been providing $40 a month to about 10,000 households using the service. Quebec ended those subsidies in June.
While Xplore is Ontario-based, the company’s controlling shareholder is New York investment firm Stonepeak, and its service is routed through a satellite owned by Maryland-based Hughes Network Systems, LLC.
If Ontario is seeking a Canadian alternative to Starlink and Xplore, it could turn to Telesat, which is planning a low earth orbit constellation called Lightspeed. But that network is not expected to launch until 2026, and is designed for large enterprises and government, not individual consumers.