Bell Canada’s cancellation of a $32-million dollar contract to expand high-speed internet and cell service on Labrador’s north coast comes as the telecommunications giant has confirmed plans to expand southward in the United States.
After receiving millions in government subsidies for the Labrador North Wireless Broadband Project, Canada’s largest communications company says it’s no longer feasible to complete the expansion due to rising costs and competition.
Providing everyone with Starlink hardware, plus service for 2 years would still be drastically cheaper anyway, and it could be deployed in 1/10th the time.
But will it happen? NOooooooo.
Stupid government bastards.
Precisely!
But, but, but … Musk is cancelling Medicaid and Medicare!! Musk and DOGE are a monster!!! Everything Musk touches is verboten!!!
We have always had to live with government stupidity, but sadly we have reached new unexplored levels of extreme stupidity with the Trudeau/Carney liberals.
“To boldly go where no stupidity has gone before.”
I subscribed to Starlink when it was obvious (after far too many years) that the Central Texas “Internet Provider” was only good for “blowing smoke up one’s “backside””. They weren’t willing to invest/repair their infrastructure since our market-base wasn’t dense enough for them to become even more filthy rich off the backs of loyal customers.
Space X is truly an equal service provider… my speeds are the same as customers in Dallas and Houston.
Guess what? Now they’re going to provide satellite to cell service.
https://www.starlink.com/us/business/direct-to-cell
But are Canada’s “Burdens-On-The-Taxpayers” smart/unbiased enough for that?
Unlikely. In November, Ontario awarded a contract to Starlink to cover Northern Ontario. In May, amidst the trade kerfuffle, they cancelled it.
Well we can’t expect them to do business with an alleged Nazi can we?
Those darn federally protected oligopolies! Where’s the gratitude eh?
Bell/SNC Lavalin/Brookfield!!!
The company says it can’t reveal the amount of money spent on the project so far, “due to confidentiality terms within agreement.”
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Huh?
An ethical entity would return the money it got from the government.
That’s why it’s a certainty that Bell won’t be returning the money.
Due to the embarrassment it would cause.
I find it odd that the government would allow such a contractual agreement clause. It’s almost as if there was never any intention of completing the project. In fact:
(((After being elected in 2019, Evans says she and then Labrador MP Yvonne Jones advocated to Bell Canada for expansion of its services to Labrador’s north coast. Evans says Bell claimed at the time that upgrades and maintenance on the north coast were too costly, and that the company refused funding assistance from the federal government.)))
So in 2019, Bell Canada said “nope”…costs too much. Then in 2022 they agree to do it, and include a clause that holds what they spent as confidential and not to be disclosed per the contractual agreement. At the same time they are laying off 4,800 they are giving $5 Million in bonuses to management, and then claiming in the same shut down notice they are pursuing another project.
Shady doesn’t begin to describe this little fiasco.
It is stupendously expensive to run cable and cell towers all the way across Labrador, and the number of people using it is very, very small.
This is the -actual- reason why cell service is expensive in Canada. So when the #Fiberals renege on the deal that supports all those barely-used cell towers out in the middle of nowhere, the company likewise pulls out of all those expensive projects.
Now, if the government would allow people to put up THEIR OWN TOWERS and compete on the network this likely wouldn’t be a problem. But they don’t do that. They like to control everything down to the last capacitor on the last circuit board. So here we are.
But if they allowed people to put up their own infrastructure they wouldn’t get paid, and that’s the second requirement for government.
Yep. My BIL and his neighbours looked at setting up a wind turbine to power their remote neighbourhood as a coop type of project. Their research showed the government wouldn’t allow that. They would have to sell any generated power to the government and then pay for it, obviously at an inflated price.
Y’all planning to expand south when the two countries don’t even have a trade deal, particularly on TelCom? This is real fascism when corporations behave just as stupidly as governments.
Funny how all of these Canadian taxpayer subsidized contracts and corporations promptly fail. How many of these deals, like during covid, are actually money laundering and kickback schemes? Governments that fail this often and this badly should be prohibited from continuing to waste taxpayer money. Would be interesting to calculate how many billions the Liberals have wasted on failed business ventures over the last decade.
LC Bennett:
Brilliant and humourous Canadian everyman blogger Moose on the Loose regularly includes lists of weird rip-off sums being doled out to foreigners, most of which are WTF laugh out loud moronic. You cannot help but conclude that most are money laundering and kickback schemes. And I might add, you can almost hear the chuckling behind the curtain.
Well, I’m sure lots of well connected Liberal insiders are laughing all the way to the bank.
Its not stupidity from the Government… its malice.
^^^^ THIS! ^^^^
…and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a little laundry going on in the back.
For 32,000,000 you could buy 640,000 Starlink units.
They’re free in the States right now. So you could buy an infinite number.
Corruption isn’t something borne out of people trying to embezzle, it’s borne from good intentions running up against the rules.
The rules in this case being supply and demand, and the intentions that of a government trying to be all things to all people. Inevitably these efforts all fail when they run out of other people’s money.
A guy should actually notice when rats abandon ship
“The same day Nunatsiavut shared news of Bell’s withdrawal from the project, the company released it annual report for shareholders, confirming plans to acquire American fibre internet provider Ziply Fiber and help bring high-speed internet to underserved communities south of the border. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2025”
So they think that they can get more government money in the US under programs that Trump is shutting down, than getting money from various Canadian government entities for the same job?
I’m still trying to get a solid handle on how the Canadian govt operates. But, it’s odd that the Major Projects Management Office (MPMO) wasn’t named once in that article. I was under the impression that it was their responsibility to provide govt. oversight on large projects (such as ones starting at $32 Million up front).
The MPMO doesn’t even have a press release addressing the forfeiture on the project. Additionally, I would think that the specific clause disallowing anyone to know what fund totals were spent from Federal taxpayer monies is a direct violation of their responsibility as project oversight.
The Canadian government doesn’t have a solid handle on how the Canadian goverment operates.
I’ll tell you something else that seems out of place and doesn’t sit well with me.
(((which came to the Inuit government “as a shock and deep disappointment.” )))
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That’s not an appropriate response to the scenario. A proper response if this whole thing unfolded as described would be plain, unadulterated anger. Let me clarify. “I’m disappointed that you took a whole truckload of money and failed to deliver anything close to your contractual promises. Why, that’s shocking.”
Or.
“You made contractual promises to install a much needed piece infrastructure. We paid you $32 Million in taxpayer revenue, and you gave us nothing. Further more, you paid your management $5 Million in bonuses, and have decided to pursue another large project instead. We find this hard to accept, and this inappropriate treatment by a perceived large corporation angers me and my constituents. We will now be studying Bell Canada’s actions to determine if financial recompensating action is necessary above and beyond any returned monies.”
The Canadian Bee.
This is hilarious. Take millions from the government, then cancel the project that the funds supported. Couldn’t make this up.
can hook them up to the solar panels the government gave them about 2 years ago in the lowest light on the planet