this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2025
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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.”

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[–] DozensOfDonner@mander.xyz 4 points 8 minutes ago

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.

[–] d00phy@lemmy.world 32 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Oooh Trump’s gonna get in a fight with Canadian Trump! Get some popcorn y’all!

[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 19 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

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.

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Lmao! I hate to admit this, but I bet "hot" would have worked as well.

[–] kameecoding@lemmy.world 5 points 35 minutes ago (1 children)

I mean she is not unattractive, until she speaks.

[–] aesthelete@lemmy.world 4 points 21 minutes ago

If you're into that kind of fake tit, dead in the eyes kinda thing...which I'm not.

Boebert is the shadow land version of AOC. My apologies to Naomi Klein.

[–] gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 92 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[–] lost_faith@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 hour ago

Fords an absolute asshole,

and he is OUR asshole, for now (no telling if/when he will flip-flop, let's hope he sticks to it)

[–] mPony@lemmy.world 18 points 3 hours ago

Thanks bud. it's not our first rodeo, we're used to the smell of bullshit.
Still, you know, when it actually gets on you it stains things.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.world 14 points 2 hours ago

Yeah “Oh well.” But then he cries like a baby who didn’t get a piggy back ride, and starts to sue people who won’t do business with his companies.

Just like all these people he’s paying off and then two days later realizes he made a mistake and wants to hire them back. Just like all these tariffs they are so fast to impose and then AFTER THINKING ABOUT SHIT want to start rolling it all back. These people are legit dumb as fuck.

[–] Substance_P@lemmy.world 16 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

It's frustrating that $100 million is only about 0.028760% of Elon Musk's total wealth ($347.7 billion). Let's hope more people abandon his failing companies and that other governments and big clients follow Fords lead.

[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 8 points 1 hour ago

I canceled my starlink after his nazi salutes, I hope a bunch more follow suit, then it could be a lot more lost reoccurring revenue for old Moscow musk

[–] starshipHighwayman69@lemmy.ml 87 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

Cue Elon crying about being blackmailed by canada on some podcast after a ket bender.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 60 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

Imagine how much power his ketamine dealer has... One spiked bag could change America.

[–] P00ptart@lemmy.world 4 points 58 minutes ago

A movie would be made about him.

[–] in4apenny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 3 hours ago

Imagine how much power his ketamine dealer has

Holy shit I never thought of that before.

[–] starshipHighwayman69@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 hours ago

Elon actually buys it by the "diaper load" not a bag but yeah you are correct.

[–] joyjoy@lemm.ee 6 points 3 hours ago

Its not really blackmail if nothing you do will change their mind. I'd just call it revenge.

[–] sirico@feddit.uk 15 points 3 hours ago

The name Ford making Elon cry again

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 24 points 4 hours ago

This is absolutely the right decision.

[–] Kalon@lemmy.world 10 points 3 hours ago

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.

[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 10 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Why tf we doing starlink deals with that fucking idiot in the first place?

[–] GreatBlueHeron@lemmy.ca 7 points 3 hours ago

From a consumer perspective it's a good solution for internet in remote areas and Ontario has a lot of remote areas. I used it for a couple of years when my only other option was a local wireless provider with an expensive high speed plan with advertised downloads up to 10Mbps, but actually never got anywhere near that. I'm lucky that I now have fibre and my starlink hardware is collecting dust in the shed.

[–] psmgx@lemmy.world 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 1 points 34 minutes ago

Ah see, Im an idiot, and got star link and spacex mixed up.

[–] wasay@lemmy.world 9 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

EU citizen here, I see that Premier Doug Ford is doing good stuff, it is a good political figure in general?

[–] doxxx@lemmy.ca 25 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

He’s a Conservative douchebag in general.

[–] wasay@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Oh. Then it looks like he is trying to clean his image or something.

[–] doxxx@lemmy.ca 14 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] HikingVet@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago

I'm guessing you aren't Tom Stoltman

[–] ahal@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 hours ago

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

[–] in4apenny@lemmy.dbzer0.com -5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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."

[–] psmgx@lemmy.world 12 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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"

[–] in4apenny@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

He also looks like a cop and I don't trust like that.

[–] HikingVet@lemmy.ca 5 points 3 hours ago

Funny, because him and his brother were in the illegal drug business.

[–] Banana@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] wasay@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago (3 children)

I'll try to stay up to date with what this guy says, he seems interesting.

[–] Banana@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 hours ago

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.

[–] HikingVet@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 hours ago

That’s one way to put it.

[–] spechter@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

From what I've understood he's a conservative populist. So interpret that however you want.

[–] wasay@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Well, somehow he is doing his part about being "conservative".

[–] null@slrpnk.net 1 points 43 minutes ago

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.

[–] psmgx@lemmy.world 5 points 3 hours ago

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.

[–] frunch@lemmy.world -1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Hope Ford has some good lawyers on retainer... this is probably gonna get ugly, lol

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] shalafi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Doesn't matter, Musk will sue anyway.

[–] IrateAnteater@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago

That's fine. The courts will just toss it.