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Connie Challice, owner of a horse-carriage business near Indus, Alta., opposes a planned data centre project near her home.LEAH HENNEL/The Globe and Mail
During the August long weekend, Connie Challice and several of her neighbours cornered Alberta Premier Danielle Smith in the back of a horse-drawn wagon during the stampede parade in Strathmore, Alta.
Ms. Challice owns a horse-carriage business, and she was at the reins, her four black Clydesdales pulling the Premier’s wagon. She was determined to get 20 minutes with Ms. Smith.
Ms. Chalice lives in Indus, a rural community just outside Calgary. The community is facing what Ms. Challice considers an existential threat: a massive data centre project with a 1,494-megawatt gas-fired power plant on site. That’s enough electricity to power a city the size of Edmonton, and it would be located just over a mile away from her home. The project is currently awaiting approval from the provincial utilities regulator.
She thought she was aligned with the Premier on their vision for the province. Ms. Challice is a long-time United Conservative Party member, she sits on her local UCP constituency board. She’d proudly pulled the Premier in the Calgary Stampede three years in a row.
But her faith in the Premier’s leadership has since wavered. Ms. Smith listened to her concerns while she was in the back of the wagon, but has ignored Albertans’ worries about data centres ever since, said Ms. Challice.
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Ms. Challice considers the massive data centre project to be an existential threat to her rural community.LEAH HENNEL/The Globe and Mail
The sprawling facilities are bad for rural communities, cause pollution that affects livestock, crops and people, she said, adding that there has also been a “complete lack of transparency and a lack of communication to the landowners” regarding their development.
“It’s ridiculous what’s going on.”
Ms. Challice is not alone in her disdain for data centres, and her growing distrust for the Premier who has backed their development.
And backed them she has: Ms. Smith has drawn the interest of the world’s largest tech companies to the province, promising an abundance of natural gas for power generation, land, cool temperatures and a business-friendly environment that are perfect for multibillion-dollar investments.
And more opportunity could be coming. As U.S. states that were also bidding for these investments turn against them, tech giants are looking for jurisdictions that are still welcoming.
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On the sidelines of the Calgary Stampede in July, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announced Meta’s multi-billion investment to build its first Canadian AI data centre in Sturgeon County.AHMED ZAKOT/The Globe and Mail
“As long as Alberta gets out of its own way we could see significant investment,” said Matt Solberg, a former adviser to the Premier and partner at New West Public Affairs, a Calgary-based lobbying firm.
But Albertans are getting in the way.
There is currently one data centre moratorium in the province, and a group of city councillors in Calgary are pushing for another one. The province’s technology and innovation minister, Nate Glubish, has faced boos and jeers from hundreds of constituents packed into town halls to oppose data centres, and far-right factions of Ms. Smith’s party could be eyeing the cause as their next crusade after a resounding defeat of a separation referendum last month.
In this way, the Premier could face the same fate as the Republican governors and congressmen and women who were ousted in sweeping fashion during the U.S. midterms, rebuked in part for their data-centre friendly policies.
It is a threat Ms. Smith will soon have to confront. The issue is bound to come up when thousands of UCP members descend on Calgary for the party’s annual general meeting on Nov. 27, and Ms. Smith is preparing to face voters in a provincial election next October.
“Our government is not listening,” Ms. Challice said.
Opinion: Data centres are on the rise – and they’re hyperscaling Canadians’ anger, too
On the night of the U.S. midterm elections, tech trillionaire Elon Musk summarized the AI backlash in a single post: “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.”
He was referencing the blue wave washing over the country. Public fear over data centre development was a factor in many of the races.
In Texas, voters elected a Democrat governor for the first time in decades, after months of public fury over Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s welcoming approach to the AI industry. His successor, Gina Hinojosa, has promised to tighten regulations on data centres but not stop them entirely. In Ohio and Kansas, voters in more than a dozen municipalities passed bans or restrictions on data centre development. In total, 26 gubernatorial candidates across 21 states backed some form of moratorium on data centre development in the run-up to election day.
Ms. Smith would be wise to pay close attention to this “cautionary tale,” Mr. Solberg said.
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Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announces a major AI sector investment during a press conference in Calgary in July.AHMED ZAKOT/The Globe and Mail
Much like the U.S. states of Texas and Georgia, Alberta launched itself into the race to attract a piece of the estimated global total of US$2-trillion of data centre investment.
The province rolled out its data-centre strategy in late 2024. It promised a “concierge service” to streamline project proposals in a bid to capture $100-billion of investment within five years – a cash injection that would also be a boon to the natural gas sector and independent power providers that use the fuel to generate electricity to feed the power-hungry facilities.
The strategy got off to a promising start.
In July, during the Calgary Stampede, Ms. Smith announced that Meta Platforms Inc. META-Q, the parent of Facebook, would build a $13-billion data centre campus north of Edmonton. The “historic win” was one of the largest private-sector investments in Canadian history, Ms. Smith declared.
There are now more than 145 data centre projects proposed for the province.
Data centres announced, under construction or operating, in ridings coloured by
party that won them in 2023 provincial election
Data centre: under construction or operating
Map shows individual data centre buildings, which can be organized into campuses containing several buildings.
Project information is reviewed and updated by Aterio at least once a month. Announced projects with only an estimated location are not mapped.
mahima singh/the globe and mail,
source: Aterio; Elections Alberta
Data centres announced, under construction or operating, in ridings coloured by
party that won them in 2023 provincial election
Data centre: under construction or operating
Map shows individual data centre buildings, which can be organized into campuses containing several buildings.
Project information is reviewed and updated by Aterio at least once a month. Announced projects with only an estimated location are not mapped.
mahima singh/the globe and mail,
source: Aterio; Elections Alberta
Data centres announced, under construction or operating, in ridings coloured by
party that won them in 2023 provincial election
Data centre: under construction or operating
Map shows individual data centre buildings, which can be organized into campuses containing several buildings.
Project information is reviewed and updated by Aterio at least once a month. Announced projects with only an estimated location are not mapped.
mahima singh/the globe and mail, source: Aterio; Elections Alberta
But the sentiments that drove opposition in the U.S. are crossing the 49th parallel.
On the surface, the pushback is about water usage, rising electricity rates, environmental impacts and a lack of adequate community consultation, said Dan Balaban, chief executive officer of Calgary-based renewables developer Greengate Power and an investor in AI infrastructure.
But the true motives for this distrust go deeper, he said.
“We’re having a debate broadly about whether or not AI is something that’s positive for society,” he said. “It’s a technology that has the potential to be highly disruptive.”
The province has tried to get ahead of this pushback by being more cautious in its data centre rollout than some U.S. states, said Janet Brown, a prominent Alberta pollster.
It has prioritized projects whereby developers bring their own power in a bid to minimize demands on the grid and the prospect of higher rates for consumers. And the Premier has been careful to recognize the downsides associated with these projects. For example, in her Meta deal announcement, she addressed concerns about water, energy infrastructure and energy bills. Why? The Premier realizes that data centres are not “the slam dunk pipelines would be,” Ms. Brown said.
Alberta’s data centre policies will help lure projects, power producers say
Data centres proposed for sites close to homes have also been rejected by the utilities regulator. One was a project located a kilometre from roughly 800 homes proposed by Synapse Real Estate Corp. (Ms. Smith initially backed this project.)
In recent months, the Premier has also started referring to data centres as “digital refineries,” wrapping them in language used by the energy sector, the province’s dominant industry.
But arguments in favour of data centres have not been convincing, and the province doesn’t yet have a major data centre to point to as an example of a project “done the right way,” said Mr. Solberg, the former adviser.
The Globe and Mail has reported that rural communities in Alberta are struggling to stay ahead of the rush on data centre development. Staff and consultation directors at municipalities and First Nations are being inundated with proposals before they’ve had a chance to develop a policy framework, and while the province is still developing its own.
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Nate Glubish, Alberta’s Minister of Technology and Innovation, has lead the province’s push to become a global hub for AI data centres.AHMED ZAKOT/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Glubish, Alberta’s technology minister, was not made available for an interview, but said in a statement that the government will introduce legislation before year’s end “to establish consistent, province-wide siting standards to ensure large data centres are located in the right places, away from residential neighbourhoods. We will also introduce measures to further address water use and expand environmental oversight.”
Developers are also offering First Nations money to drop their objections to projects, and proponents are visiting farmers with land close to proposed sites and offering to buy it for many times above market price, The Globe reported.
These local communities are out of their depth, said Quinn Nicholson, CEO of Reverb, an Edmonton-based communications firm that works on behalf of data centre developers and municipalities weighing projects. They have found themselves in the middle of a fast-moving, global “gold rush.”
“Some of Canada’s smallest communities are now being asked to make its biggest decisions, and they’re largely doing it in a void or a vacuum.”
Analysis: Ottawa and Silicon Valley are both after Canadian AI processing power. Who will win?
And for politicians in those communities, rising data centre dissent has political consequences.
Anthony Heinrich saw this play out in his 7,000-resident county located in Alberta’s conservative heartland. In 2023, nearly three-quarters of residents in the rural riding that covers the county voted for the UCP and about 45 per cent endorsed holding a separation referendum in last month’s provincewide vote. Earlier this month, Mr. Heinrich won a by-election to serve as reeve.
Rumours have been flying about AI companies eyeing land in the area, Mr. Heinrich said. And while he doesn’t believe his stand against data centres contributed to his by-election win, he said when the topic came up during a campaign debate in Buck Creek, Alta., the roughly 60 to 70 attendees voiced a deep skepticism about the developments.
One of his opponents, Jason Lavigne, disagrees with Mr. Heinrich on data centres.
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Demonstrators gather outside the Alberta Legislature in October as part of a wider protest movement against AI data centres.Amanda Erickson/The Canadian Press
The crowd packed into the community hall groaned when Mr. Lavigne stated his support for data centres, which he pitched as a new tax base for the county struggling with what he described as “crippling and deteriorating infrastructure.”
“Even just bringing it to the table as a conversation frustrated them,” said Mr. Lavigne, an independent journalist who spent the past year urging Albertans to vote for holding a separation referendum.
While Mr. Lavigne doesn’t believe his position tanked his campaign, he said one opponent later used his support for data centres “to play into the fear and misinformation.”
“They treat them like prisons. Everybody agrees we need them, but not in our backyard,” Mr. Lavigne said of the public sentiment he witnessed as a candidate.
Majority of Canadians oppose government support for AI data centres, poll shows
The data centre debate also has the potential to become a major issue for the right flank of Ms. Smith’s party, said Ms. Brown, an Alberta pollster. Ms. Smith seems to recognize that data centres are not “the slam dunk pipelines would be,” but it may not be enough to satisfy the right side of her party who are searching for a new crusade.
“Will that group of people who are anti-vax, pro-trucker, pro-blockade, pro-separation add anti-AI on to that?” she asked.
The subject has become a cultural issue “prone to conspiratorial thinking,” said Feodor Snagovsky, an associate professor of political science at the University of Alberta.
And that’s bad news for Ms. Smith, whose ascent to Premier and hold on the role has relied on that group’s support.
In two weeks, she will hear from them at her party’s AGM.
This year’s proposed resolutions include discontinuing land acknowledgments, gun rights and making public washrooms and change rooms exclusive to biological men and women. Data centres, however, are not on the agenda.
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Ms. Challice will make the journey to the UCP’s AGM to voice her concerns about data centres in Alberta.LEAH HENNEL/The Globe and Mail
That is the reason why Ms. Challice is making the trip to the AGM.
It will cost her thousands of dollars to attend; the end of November is a busy time of year for her business. It is the start of Christmas wagon ride season. She should be driving across the province with her wagons and horses. But she says she can’t miss the opportunity to make her voice and those of her neighbours heard.
“This is not okay. Why are we not addressing this? Why can’t we talk about it? Why does it just get shut down?”
Should the province continue along this trajectory and approve the data centre proposed for Ms. Challice’s community, the Premier may also have to find a new horse for her wagon, Ms. Challice said. She will not be inclined to carry the Premier through the streets any Albertan city.
“If she doesn’t have the backs of the people who are coming and talking to her, I’ll have to put my energy into other things.”