This commentary was first published by the Halifax Examiner on June 16, 2025.
On May 2, 2025, the Canadian Geographic published a heart-warming tale, initially headlined, “From fishing to rockets — Canso, N.S. could be entering the space race: U.S.-imposed tariffs could tip the scales on a proposed spaceport near Canso, N.S.”
This is the quaint start to the story:
Nestled on the northeast coast of Nova Scotia is Canso, a town of 71,000 known for its lighthouses and incredible fishing. But the region, located on the traditional lands of the Paqnkek [sic] Mi’kmaw Nation, may soon have another claim to fame — as the home base for an active spaceport.
Maritime Launch Services wants to launch Canadian-made rockets over the Atlantic Ocean, sending satellites around the poles or over the equator as needed. While these plans remain at an early stage, the community is already preparing to host the initial influx of staff who have arrived to oversee the construction and early development of its facility.
The story is about the wannabe spaceport that Maritime Launch (MLS) has been telling anyone who would listen – for years now – that it plans to build in Canso, so it can launch rockets into orbit from this easternmost point of mainland Nova Scotia.
The article quoted MLS CEO Stephen Matier, who pledged “MLS could launch its first orbital mission as soon as 2026, providing Canadian companies a sovereign solution to send their satellites to space.”
Spaceport fueled by media hype and fumes
The Canadian Geographic article is just the latest of many media fluff and puff pieces that rehash phantastic MLS claims about Matier’s spaceport project in Canso.
MLS has benefited from a lot of beyond-credulous reporting from Space Q. Already in 2017, Space Q was repeating MLS claims that the company planned to begin construction of the spaceport in May 2018.
In 2023, the Globe and Mail hosted an hour-long webcast featuring Stephen Matier, who was not once challenged or fact-checked. The Globe and Mail webcast, called “The Space Economy: What could the commercial space age mean for Canada?,” was sponsored by none other than MLS.
Related: Maritime Launch Services buys itself an hour of PR from The Globe and Mail
Such reporting lends credibility to Matier’s boasts about the MLS spaceport project, as does the support from credulous politicians.
Some major political figures showed up for the launch of a small student rocket in the summer of 2023, including Canada’s former defence minister Peter MacKay, Nova Scotia’s former premier Stephen McNeil, the province’s then minister of education and early childhood development Becky Druhan, Progressive Conservative MLA Greg Morrow, and the director of the Canadian Space Agency.
The author of the Canadian Geographic article, Elizabeth Howell, associate editor of MLS-media-cheerleader-in-chief, Space Q, wrote a gushing piece about the student launch headlined “MLS, space community celebrates [sic] debut student rocket launch at Spaceport Nova Scotia.”
