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As Ottawa is looking for made-in-Canada alternatives for Starlink, some experts say high-speed internet has accelerated the spread of online harms in the North.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, there’s so much problematic content online now,\u201d said Rob McMahon, associate professor of political science at the University of Alberta.\u00a0<\/p>\n
McMahon is the author of Too Much of a Good Thing?, a study into the \u201cdouble-edged nature\u201d of increased internet access. On one hand, Starlink helped address \u201cdigital inequality,\u201d but also amplified concerns like online gambling, cyberbullying and online scams, the study found.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even though as part of the study, McMahon surveyed residents of the Northwest Territories, he says the results would apply to Nunavut as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Starlink changes community life<\/p>\n
Starlink became available in Nunavut in 2022, promising high-speed internet, averaging over 100 megabits per second, from anywhere in the territory.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s over six times faster than the maximum download speed in the top plan offered by Northwestel, the territory\u2019s largest internet provider, which currently sits at 15 megabits per second.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could game, but it was very laggy,” said former Baker Lake mayor and IT specialist Kevin Iksiktaaryuk of his internet connection before Starlink.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Iksiktaaryuk says he was the first person to get a Starlink dish in his community and has since created a Facebook support group for Nunavut Starlink users with over 6,000 users.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He argues Starlink has become an essential part of Nunavut\u2019s day-to-day life \u2014 in schools, on the land and video games.<\/p>\n
But it also changed the usual community life. <\/p>\n
“It’s not exactly the same anymore,” Iksiktaaryuk said. <\/p>\n
He argues, along with high-speed internet, Starlink amplified “addictive tendencies” of social media, online gambling and misinformation. <\/p>\n
“I’ve been a really big advocate for technology my entire life,” Iksiktaaryuk said. “I grew up loving it. I’ve always tried to see the good side of everything, but I do understand that there are bad sides too.”<\/p>\n
Canadian company aims to compete with Starlink<\/p>\n
But despite concerns, Starlink’s popularity grew in Canada. In 2025, the company announced it has over half a million customers across Canada.\u00a0This has caused concern in Ottawa, McMahon said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“I think there’s a push for this kind of network sovereignty as a means to also transition to a more kind of made-in-Canada solution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Mark Carney said so himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Canadians \u201cdo not want to be caught in a situation where we are reliant on one provider that may change their view,\u201d Carney said of Starlink Friday<\/a> when asked about the limits the company imposed on Ukraine\u2019s use of the technology<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n One Canadian company is pitching itself as a competitor to Elon Musk\u2019s massive empire.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe will compete with them here, we will compete with them around the world,\u201d said Stephen Hampton, vice president of Telesat, a satellite communications company based in Ottawa.\u00a0<\/p>\n The company is planning to send 225 new satellites to provide internet coverage that Hampton says would match Starlink.\u00a0<\/p>\n But despite being touted as an all-Canadian project, Starlink will still have a hand in it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Telesat has a $1-billion contract with SpaceX, the company that owns and operates Starlink, to help launch those satellites in low Earth orbit.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cRight now SpaceX is the only game in town,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd in truth, they’ve been good partners on this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":955547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-955546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955546","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=955546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/955547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}