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Canada is working to launch hundreds of new communication satellites that Prime Minister Mark Carney and experts say will be “fundamental” to sovereign defence capabilities and autonomy from the United States.
During a speech to Australia’s 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’s Starlink in providing far-reaching internet services.
That in turn will help with everything from military operations to natural disaster responses, experts say — particularly in the Arctic.
“Satellite communications are now a fundamental requirement for security and strategic autonomy,” Carney said Thursday.
“A 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.”
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.
The Prime Minister’s 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.
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.
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.
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.
Telesat sets itself apart by flying its LEO satellites at a 1,300-kilometre altitude, “literally flying over the traffic jams” created by the increasingly crowded low-orbit area used by most other satellites.
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“There’s a great race in the world now” 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.
“It’s great, frankly, that Canada is being assertive about having our own capabilities … because what’s not great is if somebody from another country can turn that (network) off at will, and we don’t control it.”
In his speech, Carney alluded to restrictions Musk has placed on Ukraine’s use of Starlink for its military during the war with Russia, while underscoring the importance of sovereign satellite capabilities.
Canada’s 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.
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.
However, the Global Media and Internet Concentration Project report noted that until Telesat Lightspeed comes online, “Starlink remains the only realistic solution” for rural and remote communities in Canada.
Emma Spanswick, who co-leads Space-Defence Technologies Alberta with Skone and frequently does research projects in the Arctic, said Starlink’s arrival was a “game-changer” for sending data back from the far north.
“We still have to recover some data in these communities via hard drives,” the University of Calgary physics and astronomy professor said. “We call our data recovery method ‘Canada Post,’ because that’s actually what we use.”
Having a made-in-Canada satellite constellation would allow Canadians — rather than Americans through Starlink — to determine the satellites’ positions, Skone added, ensuring the Arctic and other critical communities are adequately covered.
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.
“There were wildfires in the Yellowknife area and in northern B.C. which compromised two fibre links … being used to connect Inuvik in terms of internet and so on,” she said.
“When 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.”
During the wildfires last year, Starlink provided a month of free service to customers in Canada in order to receive real-time emergency information.
Although LEO satellites have until recently been focused on civilian services, the researchers said countries are increasingly looking at it as a defence priority.
The 2024 loan announcement for Telesat Lightspeed said that, in addition to expanding internet connectivity, the network will help the federal government “bolster its satellite communications technology and support NATO and NORAD modernization.”
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.
“If 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’t want to have to change,” Skone said. “We want it to be interoperable across what all the forces are doing.
“That’s a big word at NATO in terms of the capabilities amongst allies: they’re 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.”
Spanswick and Skone compared it to how civilians can move between cellular data networks and not notice a drop in service on their smartphones.
Telesat is being increasingly looked at for Canada’s satellite communication needs.
The federal government in December signed a new strategic partnership with Telesat and MDA Space, another Canadian firm and Telesat’s primary satellite contractor, to develop military satellite communications for the Canadian Armed Forces in the Arctic.
The partnership is for the Enhanced Satellite Communications Project — 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’s multi-billion-dollar NORAD modernization project.
Skone said the more satellites Canada can optimize, the better — particularly if they’re made and designed at home.
“I always say to the government folks, while there are solutions that we leverage, whether it’s GPS and others, they’re not necessarily designed to work in the most optimal manner for Canadian geography,” she said.
“It’s wonderful to know that there will be civilian and military capabilities delivering connectivity specifically designed to be robust and secure for Canada.”
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