Summary
Ontario Premier Doug Ford says the province will permanently cancel its $100 million contract with Elon Musk’s Starlink, even if U.S. tariffs are lifted.
The decision follows Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canadian imports, which prompted Ontario to ban U.S. firms from contracts.
Ford cited Musk’s ties to Trump as a factor and said he is willing to fight potential legal fallout.
Musk previously responded to cancellation threats with a dismissive “Oh well.”
Build your own starlink type system like the rest of the world is doing.
This is the right thing to do. Make responses permanent, otherwise trump will just continue his idiotic game of bouncing back and forth.
Good. We Canadians should stop relying on the US. Time to focus on local industries.
Excellent. Best to deal with local industries than loco ones.
Cross country trade scales the economy way better than doing things locally though
With a stable partner, I’d say you are correct.
However if your partner is willing to weaponize that interdependency then the calculation changes.
China weaponized trade and used wolf warrior diplomacy during Covid in an attempt to gain influence. Russia weaponized energy with Europe. Now Trump is having the US do the same for “reasons” with Canada.
You’d think we would learn there is more up side to cooperation than conflict but here we are again.
How did China weaponize trade?
Seems to me like they just provide better deals because they’re willing to do the same or better quality work for less than their Western counterparts.
The same way anything can be considered a weapon. They “harmed” other economies by undercutting them.
I don’t necessarily agree that that behavior is harmful, but that is the reasoning behind calling it a weapon
They “harmed” other economies by undercutting them.
Isn’t that just competition? It’s providing a better deal for customers. That should be seen as a good thing.
The opposite would be colluding on prices like a cartel.
If the “other economies” want to compete, the business owners should have to lower their prices and take less profit as a result. Again, this is a win for customers because we’re not on the same side as the businesses selling us things.
It really is a backwards world, lol. I genuinely believe it’s because so many people have gotten raw deals but don’t want to acknowledge they’ve been taken for a ride.
It’s easier to fool them than to convince them they’ve been fooled.
Isn’t that just competition?
No no no, we only call it competition when it benefits the in-group
Fords an absolute asshole, and this is a stopped clock situation. But let’s take the win. This is a policy change in the right direction.
From a southern neighbor: sorry about the smell and the noise. We are busy shitting the bed, and we’re just getting started.
Cue Elon crying about being blackmailed by canada on some podcast after a ket bender.
Imagine how much power his ketamine dealer has… One spiked bag could change America.
Dude I know… I imagine he gets it from a doctor probably. Though if it’s like a Matthew Perry situation, he might need multiple sources if the doctor refuses to give him more than x amount. However, being a billionaire might just make all of that moot… Also, if he was doing the heroic doses Perry was doing, he wouldn’t even be able to sit up, let alone stand or speak. He would be in a permanent k-hole (and we would probably be better off).
Anyway, I have thought about this, and all it would take is such a small amount of fentanyl. Do the world a favor.
What incredible news that would be to wake up to.
I think what you are seeing publicly is his “microdoses”. His friends have said that he “microdoses daily, and macrodoses at parties” when referring to his ketamine use.
But yeah, IDK the economics of the ketamine trade. Although I somehow doubt he is getting it from doctors based off when these stories first came out, his affinity and constant use of the substance, and it’s availability. In prescription form it’s a new drug that’s closely being watched.
Yeah, but none of that shit applies to you when you have that much money. Dude could literally just build his own lab and hire chemists, like Gus Fring in Breaking Bad.
Imagine how much power his ketamine dealer has
Holy shit I never thought of that before.
Doug Ford is the world’s biggest douche.
But this is how you get Musk to behave.
Fight douches with douches
Doug Ford is the world’s biggest douche.
Interesting choice of words given this world has Trump and Musk, amongst others …
Feel bad for the people at Starlink. I can imagine a few astro-nerds really enjoying their work there and then some moldy bigwig rich guy thinking the world is his sims 4 just fuckes you with tweeting.
Don’t. The tech world has been aware that Musk is a piece of shit for more than a decade.
Anyone working for a Musk company approves of his craziness.
Or is stranded there on a H1B visa. Musk likes them both fanatical and vulnerable.
Good. Should cut ties with that asshole. He is constantly pitching ideas that are not that great on their own and can only be accomplished with subsidies.
And all this tariff threat should have repercussions. Can’t keep going back and forth, back and forth without saying enough.
I say this as an American who is disgusted with how this administration is treating our closest friends and allies.
EU citizen here, I see that Premier Doug Ford is doing good stuff, it is a good political figure in general?
Hahahahaha no, this is one of the very few odd times that I agree with him.
That being said, I come from one of the orangest (NDP), most union-ey provinces, Manitoba, so I’m a bit biased.
I’ll try to stay up to date with what this guy says, he seems interesting.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10825146/toronto-bike-lane-removal-plan-doug-ford/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/401-tunnel-cost-1.7464404
The guy’s an idiot. And completely carbrained.
That’s one way to put it.
His brother was addicted to crack when he was the mayor of Toronto and then died from cancer, so that’s pretty interesting.
What’s also kind of interesting is that the current mayor of Toronto is Olivia Chow, whose husband also died of cancer and was the late, great Jack Layton, who is very worth reading about.
From what I’ve understood he’s a conservative populist. So interpret that however you want.
Well, somehow he is doing his part about being “conservative”.
It’s simply that this is a Canada vs the US thing, not a left vs right thing.
Ford is a meat-headed bully, which just happens to come in handy against another meat-headed bully.
Arguably not, since his platform before the tariff threat was basically to privatize the shit out of everything and screw the average Ontario taxpayer out of healthcare.
He was all about the oligarchy until they burned him. Nothing conservative about being spurned and pushing back.
Only thing I knew about him before all of this was him trying to get rid of all bike lanes in Quebec (probably a bit of an exaggeration, but he’s actively trying to make it harder to use transportation that’s not a car with reasons that boil down to feelings, so, not a lot of respect for him outside how he’s handling the tariff threats)
He’s a Conservative douchebag in general.
Oh. Then it looks like he is trying to clean his image or something.
No, I think he’s just not the kind of corrupt that is trying to burn his own country down.
His country/position are his meal ticket, so he wants to keep the status quo.
He could actually be patriotic for all I know but he has tried to enrich himself and his buddies at the expense of the public before so I trust him about as far as I could throw him.
I’m guessing you aren’t Tom Stoltman
Nope. Late forties desk jockey. I ain’t throwing anybody anywhere.
Not really, he was already insanely popular before this. Just won a third majority a week ago, which is unheard of in Ontario politics. It’s more that he knows how to connect with people and the electorate is very gullible / willing to turn a blind eye.
With all this recent goodwill he’ll probably end up being our prime minister at some point shudder
Even conservatives have principles, at least they used to, getting less and less popular with that crowd though. Centrist liberals however refuse to have principles because “that’s taking sides.”
Doug Ford does not have principles. He’s in the right on this one, this time, but was actively trying to convince his base he was a Canadian Trump until the tariffs looked to annihilate his province financially.
As someone else said, “broken clock moment”
He also looks like a cop and I don’t trust like that.
Hey there I look like a cop and there’s not much I can do about it as a bald white guy. I hate it actually. I walked into a head shop recently and was greeted “Hello Officer”.
Funny, because him and his brother were in the illegal drug business.
Oooh Trump’s gonna get in a fight with Canadian Trump! Get some popcorn y’all!
Yeah, i was gonna say pp is canada trump, but on further reflection pp is more akin to mike Johnson. I guess marlaina Smith is a combo of mtg and bobo. Side note i forgot bobos name and looked it up.
Lmao! I hate to admit this, but I bet “hot” would have worked as well.
Id hate fuck the hell out of her just like Ann Coulter decades ago
Why tf we doing starlink deals with that fucking idiot in the first place?
Ontario is a massive province and rural internet outside of a handful of areas is terrible. Satellite, esp. good, consistent satellite, is a godsend for those areas – no one is running fiber out to a town of only 2000 bodies that’s highly isolated.
It was a reasonable choice, assuming Musk was mostly sane and not onboard with MAGA.
Ah see, Im an idiot, and got star link and spacex mixed up.
Hope Ford has some good lawyers on retainer… this is probably gonna get ugly, lol
Might not. I assume there’s some sort of penalty clause built into the contract, so there shouldn’t be much to sue about unless Ford tries to find a way to not pay that penalty.
Doesn’t matter, Musk will sue anyway.
That’s fine. The courts will just toss it.
