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“I can confirm the premier has fulfilled his word, which is to cancel that contract because of the very reasons he’s cited in the past,” Lecce said when pressed by reporters at a news conference on Ontario’s plan to double production of medical isotopes from its fleet of nuclear reactors.

“We are standing up for Canada.”

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie said Ford has “some explaining to do” given that the government signed the contact when it was well known Musk was a strong supporter of Donald Trump, whom the premier has been fighting on tariffs. 

“We deserve to know how much getting out of this bad deal cost taxpayers,” Crombie said in a statement. “If there’s nothing to hide, then come clean. If Doug Ford is going to pay Elon Musk to get out of this mess, then we deserve to know how much.”

“It’s like this government is allergic to even the most basic forms of transparency and accountability,” she added, saying a Canadian supplier of internet services should have been chosen in the first place. 

The search is now on for a “Canadian alternative,” Lecce said. 

Ford pledged to scrap the deal early in the campaign that returned his Progressive Conservatives to power with a third consecutive majority. At the time, Musk was an ally of the U.S. president, who then had threatened — but not yet imposed — tariffs on Canadian exports like aluminum and steel. The bromance has since ended. 

That pledge came just a week after Ford defended the deal, saying “we went for a transparent bid. (Starlink) came out on top.”

In early March, Ford again said he would nix the Starlink deal in retaliatory measures against Trump tariffs that included barring U.S. booze from LCBO shelves, banning American companies from $30 billion worth of Ontario government procurement contracts, and a 25 per cent surcharge on electricity exports to nearby states. The latter was quickly cancelled in return for a meeting with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. 

“I don’t want to deal with someone that’s attacking our country — and he was one of the number one culprits, Elon Musk, and that’s unacceptable,” Ford reiterated June 5, after the split between Musk and Trump, and refused to discuss any cancellation penalties. 

“Starlink is done.”

The ire toward the ultra-wealthy Musk, who emigrated with his family from South Africa to Ontario in 1989, followed his role as a major donor and influential adviser to Trump. Musk soured on the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act with its $4.5 trillion (U.S.) in tax cuts he feared would negate cost cutting by the Department of Government Efficiency.