Conservative MP Jamil Jivani has asked Canada’s ethics commissioner to examine whether Prime Minister Mark Carney’s friendship with Telesat chief executive Dan Goldberg puts him in a conflict of interest, three months after the satellite operator won a $2.3-billion Arctic military communications contract.
In a letter dated Oct. 30 and posted to X on Tuesday, Jivani asks Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein to decide whether a conflict of interest screen should cover Carney’s dealings with the Ottawa satellite operator, its subsidiaries and Goldberg, and to order one if needed. A screen is a formal arrangement, run by senior staff, that keeps an office holder out of any discussion or decision touching a named interest.
Jivani wrote that he was taking up an invitation the commissioner made at the House of Commons ethics committee on Oct. 28, when Jivani asked why Goldberg isn’t on the prime minister’s screen. CTV News reported that von Finckenstein appeared unfamiliar with the connection and said the Conservatives could write to him asking for a review.
The Conflict of Interest Act lists a public office holder’s friends, along with relatives, among the private interests that can create a conflict. Jivani argues that, given the friendship and the federal money already committed to Telesat, “a reasonable person would expect at the very least an ethics screen to be established for the prime minister.”
He also asks the commissioner to confirm whether Carney has recused himself from any Telesat matter since becoming prime minister on March 14, 2025, and to examine whether Carney’s promotion of the company, including at September’s Canada Investment Summit, warrants a formal examination under the Act.
Evan Solomon’s screen example
Carney’s existing screen, made public in July 2025, covers 103 companies, almost all of them tied to Brookfield Asset Management, which he chaired before entering politics, along with the payments company Stripe. Goldberg and Telesat are not on it.
Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon, who is also friends with Goldberg, has a screen that covers both Goldberg and Telesat, CTV reported. Jivani’s letter says Solomon has recounted joining Goldberg on a 2015 trip to run the London Marathon with Carney.
A public friendship
Carney told the Ottawa Business Journal in 2019 that he first met Goldberg when their children played in the same preschool soccer league in Ottawa. Goldberg had moved to the city in 2006 to run Telesat. The journal’s profile called them good friends and described Goldberg travelling to London to visit Carney, then governor of the Bank of England, and run the marathon.
Jivani’s letter adds that Goldberg attended Carney’s swearing-in as prime minister in March 2025 and the swearing-in of his cabinet that May. It quotes an Oct. 20 statement in which Goldberg said he has been open about his “long-standing friendship with Mr. Carney” and has never sought government money, contracts or special treatment from him.
Telesat and Ottawa say the award was made at arm’s length
“As our CEO Dan Goldberg stated unequivocally previously, he’s never asked Mr. Carney for government money, for government contracts — including on ESCP-P — or for special treatment of any kind related to Telesat, either before or after he took office,” a Telesat spokesperson told CBC News.
Carney’s office told The Globe and Mail in October that the prime minister “has not participated in any decisions or discussions related to Telesat or Dan Goldberg.” It did not respond to CBC on Tuesday, and CTV reported that it did not say whether Carney had disclosed the friendship to the commissioner. The commissioner’s office confirmed it had received the letter.
Conservative defence critic James Bezan demanded in August that the government release the contract and the record of how it was decided. “This is about a matter of trust and transparency,” he told CBC at the time. The Privy Council Office answered that the Defence Investment Agency had followed proper process and that Carney’s screen “is respected at all times.” Goldberg said the contract “was procured in an absolutely rigorous arm’s-length manner.”
National Defence lists a $2.55-billion sole-source contract
The Defence Investment Agency awarded the contract on Aug. 4 for the first phase of the Enhanced Satellite Communications Project – Polar (ESCP-P), which will give the Canadian Armed Forces secure communications across the Arctic over Telesat’s Lightspeed constellation in low Earth orbit. The agency valued the initial contract at about $2.3 billion.
The Canadian Space Agency and National Defence were studying a pair of polar communications and weather satellites for the Arctic as early as 2007. The military later split off the communications work into what became ESCP-P, still planned around satellites in elliptical orbits. Telesat’s low Earth orbit network was chosen through the strategic partnership announced in December 2025.
National Defence’s public contract disclosures list a sole-sourced contract with Telesat LEO worth about $2.55 billion, dated July 31, four days before that announcement. The record describes the work as engineering consulting and notes that the contract “was omitted from a previous public disclosure.” It does not say whether this is the ESCP-P award or why its value differs from the announced figure.
Contract options and a December debt deadline still ahead
Jivani says decisions on Telesat are still to come, including two ESCP-P option periods worth about $214 million and $218 million.
Telesat GEO, the subsidiary that runs the company’s older geostationary satellites, owes about $2.4 billion ($US 1.71 billion) on a term loan and notes that mature in December, with the first payment due Dec. 6. Telesat’s latest filings say its cash is not expected to cover it. Jivani wrote that the debt makes his request time-sensitive, calling it “highly likely” the federal government will need to act to keep Telesat solvent. Telesat told CTV it is focused on refinancing and an outcome “fair to all stakeholders.”
Carney told the New York Times in September that Canada would “diversify away” from SpaceX’s Starlink by relying on Lightspeed, then expected in early 2028. Telesat now puts the start of global service at the end of the second quarter of 2028.
The commissioner will decide whether the prime minister can take part in those choices when they reach cabinet.