First Nation says it wasn’t consulted on celebrity businessman’s proposed data centre project

Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation Chief Sheldon Sunshine.

By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

(ANNews) – Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation (SLCN) says it wasn’t consulted before celebrity businessman Kevin O’Leary announced plans to build the “world’s largest” artificial intelligence (AI) data centre on its traditional territory. 

In a Dec. 9 press release, the Municipal District (MD) of Greenview announced its “groundbreaking partnership with O’Leary Ventures to build an off-grid natural gas and geothermal power infrastructure to support the largest AI data centre industrial park in the world.”

Dubbed “Wonder Valley,” the AI data centre is slated to be built in the Greenview Industrial Gateway (GIG) near Grande Prairie, a piece of former Crown land that was transferred from the provincial government to the Greenview municipality in 2021 for industrial development over SLCN’s objections.

“One of our core values for the project is to engage with First Nations Indigenous communities to create a mutually beneficial relationship and one that honours the people and the lands for many years to come,” said O’Leary Ventures CEO Paul Palandjian in the press release. 

On Jan. 13, Chief Sheldon Sunshine penned a cease-and-desist letter to the provincial government regarding the project, which Premier Danielle Smith described as “fantastic news for Alberta” in the Greenland MD press release. 

It was through this press release that Sunshine said he learned about this project, “which will have massive effects on our water and our land.”

“Our people have traplines in this area; we rely on the water from the Smoky River; and it is one of the few areas accessible to exercise our way of life, which has been systemically eroded by unmitigated cumulative effects resulting from the provincial government’s authorizations of industrial development in our territory,” the SLCN chief noted. 

Northern Alberta is a coveted location for AI data centres due to its cold climate during most of the year, which limits the need for air conditioning to prevent computers from overheating. 

In April 2023, Greenview MD re-zoned the GIG “to accommodate complex industrial developments.”

A “fact sheet” from the GIG about the project claims it will create 2,000 to 4,000 construction jobs during the construction phase and that each project phase will create 100 to 150 maintenance and operations jobs. 

The data centre will be powered by off-grid natural gas and geothermal energy. “Ongoing discussions with midstream natural gas producers in the area are focused on securing a reliable and sustainable supply for the Data Centre,” the fact sheet says.

According to O’Leary, the $70-billion site will generate 7.5 gigawatts of power over the next five to 10 years, with its first phase costing $2.8 billion for 1.4 gigawatts.

He told CityNews Edmonton that someone from the ruling United Conservative Party proposed the project to him and Premier Smith assured him she would ensure he could get the necessary permits. 

In an earlier Fox News appearance posted to his YouTube channel, O’Leary claimed that Smith “provided a permit” for 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and that he and Smith were “moving all over the world” to secure private funding for Wonder Valley. 

According to the GIG fact sheet, each phase of the project will require 538 billion cubic feet of gas per year. 

In a Dec. 12 op-ed for Sherwood Park News, published three days after Greenview MD announced its plans for the data centre, Minister of Technology and Innovation Nate Glubish boasted that his ministry “has been working with the O’Leary team for several months to assist in navigating Alberta’s regulatory framework.”

The SLCN letter blasts the “provincial government’s apparent coordination, behind closed doors and to the exclusion of our Nation, for a massive development on our traditional territory.”

NDP MLA Brooks Arcand Paul, who before being elected worked as a lawyer for Alexander First Nation, told the Macleod Gazette “that when projects of this magnitude don’t include Indigenous consultation, they can be stalled indefinitely.”

Calling O’Leary a “failed federal Conservative leadership candidate,” in reference to O’Leary’s aborted 2017 campaign, with ties to U.S. President Donald Trump, Arcand Paul said he doesn’t understand “why this project has even been intimated in this province and why we have a premier already lauding it for the benefits it will bring.”

 

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