Examples not to follow: Ontario ONSAT and biofuels production

The ONSAT program of the Ontario government trying to provide internet connectivity to the North is an example of the kind of things that Canada can no longer do. And, the kind of thing that the government must learn from.

The alternative to this was the releasing of intellectual property that was developed in Canada but has not been commericalized or implemented because that IP was bought by American capital and then shelved. The shelving of Canadian research and blunting of the implementation of Canadian product development has become increasingly standard for American companies worried about competition.

The deal for ONSAT was for 15,000 installs/equipment (equipment which will not be needed soon), but more importantly it is about priority on the Starlink network. The priority on the network is to provide "dedicated" bandwidth to that region of the world for data services because there Starlink has very limited bandwith capacity. And,though it is stated as 'internet' it is all information including mobile telephony which has very tiny bandwith needs.

The money we are giving Starlink is essentially to provide that priority for some northern Canadian coverage, but doesn't guarantee it.

The reason the money states priority is the network is that Starlink is building the infrastructure for American shipping routes, military, and remote Alaska already exists there, subsidized by the Americans. Using that system means that communications of all kinds will go through the USA and support that expansion by displacing alternatives. This will happen not just in the North, but across Canada very soon.

The issue for the cell phones is that you can provide 'cell' voice information and data over the same data system that Starlink provides.

The subsidy for Starlink through the ONSAT will displace mobile phone providers and displace revenue to Bell and undermines the expansion of commercially viable alternatives for businesses, the government, and the military.

One Canadian alternative for this system is ORION and the quasi-public CANARIE system and their National Research and Education Network (NREN) could be expanded to provide public data services to these communities with limited cost compared to Starlink. Expanding these networks to public infrastructure (medical, military, public service) is already ongoing. The reason it is not used is because of silly barriers between commercial and non-commercial uses of this network and concerns over security of the data within the University research network.

Limiting this is short-sighted as these deals with Starlink will undermine the commercial viability of Bell's network.

Canada could use these 'non-profits' (they are essentially a new version of Crown Company without the Crown agency piece) to establish the backbone for data transport across the 'north' and the underserved.

The issue is not even access to internet in these communities, it is price of the service. Bell and other local communities cannot compete with the highly subsidized Starlink on price. But, that is only because we are not leveraging current public infrastructure to provide data services to these regions.

ORION already goes to Timmins and CANARIE goes into Nunavut. To push it farther north would take investment, but that backbone could be provided by the government.

We will need some terrestrial alternative to Starlink in Canada as the priority on that network cannot be assured even through these contracts because of the way that Starlink works.

The other option is to use the NRC's research 'Challenge' program on fixed wireless and optical networks using technology developed in conjunction with Canadian-based businesses. This technology is just waiting to be implemented in commercially viable ways and publicly owned systems.

Finally, there is the financialized (previously a Canadian Crown) Telesat which is developing its own low earth orbit communications system. The Canadian public created and finance the company, the idea we are not leveraging it to provide reliable data connections in the North and instead funding Starlink is just bad policy.

The response to tariffs has to be not just retaliatory, but also expand the use of 'sovereignty' through Canadian made alternative technologies. We currently have slow commercialization of these technologies because the entire thing is based on American capital, which only invests if there is a commercially viable market in the USA. The result is a massive amount of potential tech left on the shelf because Canada refuses to support the last mile commercialization of tech that we have already invented.

The 'all options on the table' we are putting forward seem to be missing some of the options that are outside the comfort zone of the Liberals, namely anything that expands the role of the state and its agencies in establishing Canadian-based commercial options.

Another version of the Canadian IP being purchased by American/foreign capital and then shut down is in biofuels.

Most fuels used in Canada have a minimum level of biofuels that have to be mixed with fossil fuels.

Canada has established new technology in this area, through commercially viable biofuel production. However, recent aquisitions of Canada-based companies in biofuels using this new technology were purchased by companies with operations in the USA and then shut down.

This IP was then used to establish processes else where. The result is that Canada is importing American highly subsidized biofuels feedstocks and refined products made elsewhere.

The process is simply the result of private investment and free trade, but it is one of the clearest examples of why the Commericalization of University Research that has been pushed since the 1990s has been a failure for Canadians. All those commericalization programs relied on Direct Foreign Investment without protections or restrictions on ownership of the IP.

That is, it was essentially set-up so that either the IP is shelved or the IP is extracted from Canada and the results executed elsewhere.

Basically, the opposite of a functional industrial strategy. And, something that the Left has been critical of since the beginning.

The trade war is an opportunity to learn from this and establish Crown and other structures of publicly owned companies that implement research to expand our own industrial base.