Indigenous legal advocates in northwestern Ontario are sounding the alarm over the Ontario government’s cancellation of its contract with Starlink, citing concerns with people’s access to legal services in remote First Nations.
Last month, Premier Doug Ford announced he’d be ripping up the $100-million deal with Elon Musk’s internet provider, as a retaliatory measure in the ongoing Canada-U.S. trade war.
But in northwestern Ontario, this means the end of the Starlink-Navigator Program delivered by Nishnawbe-Aski Legal Services Corporation (NALSC), which “permitted community members, who often do not have access to internet, or reliable internet, an opportunity to participate in virtual courts.”
I understand spending $100million of it’s to fix Ontario’s infrastructure and get more people connected, but this isn’t it. It’s simply paying off someone else to put in a band-aid solution that only looks good on the surface.
I understand the idea of building up the infrastructure for isolated communities to become connected, but I strongly feel that this isn’t the way. It’s forcing a group of people onto a monopoly that can be taken away at any point. If the government really wanted to do this, then they’d fund cell towers to these isolated communities instead. That’ll give them reliable internet access that isn’t beholden to a single company on top of helping local companies. Nobody would be forced to use hardware from a specific company or suffer complete loss of service.
This is likely more expensive, but it’s far more beneficial and forward looking and may even bring people together more. And it doesn’t exclude Starlink for those who want it as well. They just have to pay for that on their own, but Starlink is already priced to be affordable to individual families.