French-U.K. Starlink rival pitches Canada on 'sovereign' satellite service for Arctic military operations

A company largely owned by the French and U.K. governments is pitching Canada on a roughly $250-million plan to provide the military with secure satellite broadband coverage in the Arctic, CBC News has learned.

Eutelsat, a rival to tech billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink, already provides some services to the Canadian military, but wants to deepen the partnership as Canada looks to diversify defence contracts away from suppliers in the United States.

A proposal for Canada's Department of National Defence to join a French Ministry of Defence initiative involving Eutelsat was apparently raised by French President Emmanuel Macron with Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of last year's G7 summit in Alberta. 

The prime minister's first question, according to Eutelsat and French defence officials, was how the proposal would affect the Telesat Corporation, a former Canadian Crown corporation that was privatized in the 1990s.

Telesat is in the process of developing its Lightspeed system, a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation of satellites for high-speed broadband.

And in mid-December, the Liberal government announced it had established a strategic partnership with Telesat and MDA Space to develop the Canadian Armed Forces' military satellite communications (MILSATCOM) capabilities.

A Eutelsat official said the company already has its own satellite network in place and running, along with Canadian partners, and has been providing support to the Canadian military deployed in Latvia.

"What we can provide for Canada is what we call a sovereign capacity capability where Canada would actually own all of our capacity in the Far North or wherever they require it," said David van Dyke, the general manager for Canada at Eutelsat, in a recent interview with CBC News. 

"We also give them the ability to not be under the control of a singular individual who could decide to disconnect the service for political or other reasons."

What van Dyke is referencing, more than anything else, are reports that Musk ordered Starlink switched off in Ukraine during a pivotal push by the Eastern European country to retake territory from Russia in late September 2022. 

The order disrupted the counteroffensive in areas including Kherson, a strategic region north of the Black Sea. At least 100 terminals went dark, according to sources who spoke to the Reuters News Agency.

Starlink has hundreds of thousands of customers in Canada and has been a major source of broadband internet access in the Far North. Starlink is a subsidiary of Musk's SpaceX rocket company.

But Musk's time as head of the Department of Government Efficiency in U.S. President Donald Trump's second administration has dampened enthusiasm to the point where Ontario — angered by U.S. tariffs — last summer officially cancelled a $100-million contract with Starlink to provide service in northern communities.

Eutelsat has had significant contracts with the U.S. government, including the Pentagon. But since Trump returned to office the company has seen at least one large U.S. Department of Defence contract — worth $55 million US — not renewed.