Eutelsat pitches Canada with sovereign satellite service for Arctic defence

Eutelsat, a company largely owned by France and the United Kingdom, has presented Canada with a roughly $250 million proposal to deliver secure satellite broadband for the Canadian Armed Forces in the Arctic. The pitch, raised by President Emmanuel Macron to Prime Minister Mark Carney at last year’s G7 summit in Alberta, promises “sovereign capacity” that cannot be shut down for political reasons—an issue highlighted by Elon Musk’s 2022 Starlink shutdown in Ukraine. Canada already works with Eutelsat for military deployments in Latvia and is diversifying away from U.S. suppliers after Ontario cancelled a $100 million Starlink contract and a $55 million U.S. DoD deal was not renewed. The plan would complement Canada’s own Lightspeed constellation, developed with Telesat and MDA Space.