Canada’s New Telecom Rules Could Trip Up Starlink – Just as It Tries to Expand

Elon Musk’s Starlink and Canada have always had a somewhat shaky relationship, like a winter road that appears smooth until the tires hit black ice. The promise is straightforward: internet that finally reaches the places fiber never bothered to, a tiny dish, and a clear view of the sky. However, Canada regulates its communications networks in a similar manner to how it regulates banking: slowly, cautiously, and with a strong preference for systems that it can see and control.

A new set of telecom regulations and consultations is now posing a known risk: Starlink may once more be blocked, not because the satellites malfunction, but rather because the documentation and policy reasoning are inconsistent. That might sound like a technicality. Technicalities are frequently the whole story in Canada.

In the Far North, where connectivity is more of a daily necessity than a luxury, there is the most recent conflict. With a formal consultation process and specific questions about what a subsidy should look like and how it should be funded, the CRTC has been working on an internet service subsidy intended to close the affordability gap between the Far North and the rest of the nation.

The regulator’s own rhetoric is pragmatic: residents have fewer options, outages are more severe, and prices are higher. It’s difficult to argue with that part.

But as soon as you attempt to define “help,” you begin to choose who is excluded.

On that exact topic, Bell Canada and its northern subsidiary, Northwestel, have been arguing to regulators that Starlink shouldn’t be allowed to receive subsidies if it sets a single, consistent national price. Their reasoning is straightforward: Subsidizing northern subscribers could essentially help pad Starlink’s margins if the company doesn’t price the North differently. According to the reporting, the intervention is based on the notion that subsidies ought to address actual regional cost disparities rather than incentivize a pricing strategy.

The argument seems to be about more than $25 a month. It has to do with precedent. It is more difficult to view Starlink as a “alternative provider” and more straightforward to view it as a component of Canada’s core telecom infrastructure once public funds begin to flow to a foreign-owned satellite operator on a large scale. That is what some people desire. Obviously, others don’t.

In a pragmatic, hands-on manner, Starlink’s counterargument is equally compelling: consistent pricing is precisely what draws remote households to the service. Regulators are encouraging providers to raise their prices in the North just because they can if they penalize that model. That’s a strange result for a subsidy meant to increase affordability. Nevertheless, it is clear why incumbents support it. Markets are shaped by subsidies. Power is shaped by markets. Telecom firms take note.

Nor is this “again” rhetorical. In ways unrelated to latency or throughput, Starlink has already been thrust into Canadian politics. In an exceptionally clear example of how geopolitical sentiment can influence infrastructure choices, the provincial government of Ontario cancelled a C$100 million contract meant to connect distant homes and businesses after indicating it would sever a Starlink agreement during the tariff backlash.

It was difficult to ignore how rapidly satellite internet evolved from a tool to a symbol while watching that episode. For their part, regulators typically favor symbols that they have control over.

The quieter, more general reality is that Canada’s telecom policy is currently in one of its recurring “competition and affordability” phases, during which the CRTC is rendering rulings that broaden specific wholesale access frameworks and alter the ways in which competitors can use networks. Since Starlink does not lease last-mile fiber from Bell or Rogers, it does not neatly plug into those frameworks.

It is avoiding them. Customers can benefit from that feature. With a corporate logo attached, it may appear to be a weakness in the Canadian telecom system.

Even CRTC rulings that don’t seem to have anything to do with Starlink give away how it is viewed—as a part of other services and pricing discussions. The regulator mentioned Starlink’s internet service fee as part of the cost structure in one 2025 ruling involving a satellite VoIP proposal from TELUS, jokingly reminding readers that Starlink is already present in the discussion even when it isn’t the primary topic.

Embedded is not synonymous with embraced.

How strictly eligibility lines are drawn or where the current round of consultations and rulemaking falls are still unknown. However, if you listen to the tone of the pushback and the filings, it sounds more like Canada determining whether Starlink is permitted to be normal than it does determining whether it is “good” or “bad.” Normal providers meet the requirements of domestic policy, reporting, contribution, and subsidy regulations. Starlink doesn’t by design.

And the actual collision might be that. The idea of avoiding the outdated system is sold by Starlink. In the telecom industry, where wires (and now spectrum and satellites) end up feeling like sovereignty with a monthly bill, Canada, like most other countries, is built to preserve it.