{"id":520882,"date":"2026-03-07T18:04:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/520882\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T18:04:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T18:04:14","slug":"satellites-are-canadas-next-sovereignty-frontier-as-global-race-heats-up-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/520882\/","title":{"rendered":"Satellites are Canada\u2019s next sovereignty frontier as global \u2018race\u2019 heats up – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada is working to launch hundreds of new communication satellites<\/a>\u00a0that Prime Minister Mark Carney and experts say will be \u201cfundamental\u201d to sovereign<\/a> defence<\/a> capabilities and autonomy from the United States.<\/p>\n

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During a speech to Australia\u2019s parliament on Thursday, Carney highlighted a soon-to-launch, made-in-Canada low earth orbit (LEO) satellite network that could soon compete with Elon Musk\u2019s Starlink<\/a> in providing far-reaching internet services.<\/p>\n

That in turn will help with everything from military operations to natural disaster responses, experts say \u2014 particularly in the Arctic.<\/p>\n

\u201cSatellite communications are now a fundamental requirement for security and strategic autonomy,\u201d Carney said Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Canadian-based constellation of LEO satellites will launch next year to provide reliable and secure global communications. We are working with other like-minded partners who possess similar capabilities to build out a deep and resilient system we can all share and control in our own territories.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The new defence industrial strategy includes space, and specifically satellite communications, as one of its 10 key sovereign capabilities that the federal government is looking to prioritize.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister\u2019s Office confirmed Carney was referencing Telesat Lightspeed, a network of nearly 200 LEO satellites that was initially set to go into orbit late this year.<\/p>\n

The project was given a $2.14-billion federal loan in 2024 to expand internet and 5G connectivity across Canada, including in remote and Indigenous communities that have long been without fast, reliable service.<\/p>\n

Many of those communities have come to rely on Starlink, which has contracts with multiple provinces and territories and is currently the sixth-largest internet provider in Canada, according to a 2025 report from the Global Media and Internet Concentration Project.<\/a><\/p>\n

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The company operates thousands of LEO satellites with an altitude of 600 km, and says it delivers the same kind of service provided by larger and far more expensive medium-earth orbit GPS satellites at a fraction of the cost.<\/p>\n

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Telesat sets itself apart by flying its LEO satellites at a 1,300-kilometre altitude, \u201cliterally flying over the traffic jams\u201d created by the increasingly crowded low-orbit area used by most other satellites.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s a great race in the world now\u201d among private companies and countries looking to develop and launch their own LEO satellite networks, said Susan Skone, a satellite technology researcher and professor at the University of Calgary who co-leads the Space-Defence Technologies Alberta research project.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s great, frankly, that Canada is being assertive about having our own capabilities \u2026 because what\u2019s not great is if somebody from another country can turn that (network) off at will, and we don\u2019t control it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his speech, Carney alluded to restrictions Musk has placed on Ukraine\u2019s use of Starlink for its military during the war with Russia, while underscoring the importance of sovereign satellite capabilities.<\/p>\n

Canada\u2019s use of Starlink came under scrutiny last year after U.S. President Donald Trump launched his trade war against Canada, at a time when Musk was serving as a special adviser to Trump and leading efforts to slash U.S. government budgets and funding through DOGE.<\/p>\n

Ontario cancelled a $100-million contract with Starlink as part of its retaliation against the U.S., and other provinces and territories said they were reconsidering their own contracts and looking at made-in-Canada options.<\/p>\n

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However, the Global Media and Internet Concentration Project report noted that until Telesat Lightspeed comes online, \u201cStarlink remains the only realistic solution\u201d for rural and remote communities in Canada.<\/p>\n

Emma Spanswick, who co-leads Space-Defence Technologies Alberta with Skone and frequently does research projects in the Arctic, said Starlink\u2019s arrival was a \u201cgame-changer\u201d for sending data back from the far north.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have to recover some data in these communities via hard drives,\u201d the University of Calgary physics and astronomy professor said. \u201cWe call our data recovery method \u2018Canada Post,\u2019 because that\u2019s actually what we use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having a made-in-Canada satellite constellation would allow Canadians \u2014 rather than Americans through Starlink \u2014 to determine the satellites\u2019 positions, Skone added, ensuring the Arctic and other critical communities are adequately covered.<\/p>\n

She also pointed to the wildfires in northern Canada as a real-world example of LEO satellites providing more reliable connectivity for communities and first responders.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere were wildfires in the Yellowknife area and in northern B.C. which compromised two fibre links \u2026 being used to connect Inuvik in terms of internet and so on,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they were compromised, some service providers had a backup (and) some service providers did not. And some people went without connectivity and TV for several weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the wildfires last year, Starlink provided a month of free service to customers in Canada in order to receive real-time emergency information.<\/p>\n

Although LEO satellites have until recently been focused on civilian services, the researchers said countries are increasingly looking at it as a defence priority.<\/p>\n

The 2024 loan announcement for Telesat Lightspeed said that, in addition to expanding internet connectivity, the network will help the federal government \u201cbolster its satellite communications technology and support NATO and NORAD modernization.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCanada to strengthen Arctic military communications\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

With more countries and coalitions like the European Union pursuing their own LEO networks, leaders like Carney are now looking at integrating them for seamless communications between militaries.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf we want to have forces of other nations working with us in the Arctic environment or we go somewhere else, we want to be able to take our hardware and we don\u2019t want to have to change,\u201d Skone said. \u201cWe want it to be interoperable across what all the forces are doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a big word at NATO in terms of the capabilities amongst allies: they\u2019re free to develop their own manner of delivering capabilities and being capable to do certain things, but it should be interoperable to the largest extent possible with other systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spanswick and Skone compared it to how civilians can move between cellular data networks and not notice a drop in service on their smartphones.<\/p>\n

Telesat is being increasingly looked at for Canada\u2019s satellite communication needs.<\/p>\n

The federal government in December signed a new strategic partnership with Telesat and MDA Space, another Canadian firm and Telesat\u2019s primary satellite contractor, to develop military satellite communications for the Canadian Armed Forces in the Arctic.<\/p>\n

The partnership is for the Enhanced Satellite Communications Project \u2014 Polar (ESCP-P) project, which comes with a budget that exceeds $5 billion and is estimated to come online in 2037. The project is part of Canada\u2019s multi-billion-dollar NORAD modernization project.<\/p>\n

Skone said the more satellites Canada can optimize, the better \u2014 particularly if they\u2019re made and designed at home.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI always say to the government folks, while there are solutions that we leverage, whether it\u2019s GPS and others, they\u2019re not necessarily designed to work in the most optimal manner for Canadian geography,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to know that there will be civilian and military capabilities delivering connectivity specifically designed to be robust and secure for Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada is working to launch hundreds of new communication satellites\u00a0that Prime Minister Mark Carney and experts say will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,714,11464,66,183373,306,248,64],"class_list":["post-520882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-politics","tag-satellite","tag-science","tag-sovereignty","tag-space","tag-starlink","tag-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}