You’d think Danielle Smith, of all people, would have seen her government’s troubles with Artificial Intelligence data centres coming right up Highway 2.
After all, back in the early Twenty-teens when Ms. Smith was the still new leader of the fledgling Wildrose Party, she ruthlessly exploited the Progressive Conservative Government’s plans to build multi-billion-dollar electrical power transmission line infrastructure through rural Alberta, a situation with many similarities to the United Conservative Party’s data centre fiasco today.
The night before last, flustered Technology Minister Nate Glubish was “jeered, badgered and booed,” as the Canadian Press reporter who attended the meeting described the scene, at a packed town hall meeting in the Central Alberta town of Lacombe.
“Dozens of people lined up to ask questions, but none who made it to the microphone before the event ended offered an endorsement,” reporter Lisa Johnson dryly observed.
By some accounts, long-time Wildrose and Conservative political staffer and strategist Vitor Marciano grew irate as he tried to control the meeting, grumping as the meeting ended that “there has been some misinformation here, but I’m not sure it’s coming from the stage.”
Outside, a data centre opponent gave an impromptu public seminar on the risks of the energy- and water-intensive technology wherever it shows up.
Regardless of what happened at a second townhall last night in Redwater, 50 kilometres north of Edmonton and close to the planned site of the massive Meta data centre in Sturgeon County, it’s clear concern about AI data centres runs deep among rural residents and members of the farm community, key parts of the UCP’s governing coalition.
Back in 2009, the PC Government of premier Ed Stemlach passed Bill 50, the Electric Statutes Amendment Act, allowing the cabinet to approve major electrical transmission projects without assessments or public hearings.
Picking up on the fear in rural Alberta that the government was about to trample on the property rights of landowners, the Wildrose Party jumped on the issue in the months leading up to the 2012 general election.
“We’ve heard loud and clear from Alberta ratepayers that they simply don’t believe that the plan for $14 billion or $16 billion worth of new transmission is what’s needed for the Alberta market,” Ms. Smith said in January 2012.
“We had a perfectly good process before, when we had consumer groups and landowner groups able to discuss what was being proposed,” she added, vowing to scrap Bill 50 and listen to landowners.
The PCs were gobsmacked by the reaction. Premier Stelmach decided he had had enough and resigned. And, were it not for a providential Lake of Fire bozo eruption, the Wildrose Party might well have cruised to victory over Mr. Stelmach’s successor, Alison Redford, in the spring election that year.
Wildrose MLA Rob Anderson – today Premier Smith’s separatist chief of staff – called the government’s arguments for the powerlines “political malarkey” and the policy “a travesty.”
Sometime Green Party leader Joe Anglin joined the fray, calling PC politicians “incompetent and dumber than your average monkey. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve caught them lying.” Earlier, he had caught the provincial energy regulator hiring private dicks to spy on landowners opposed to a power line – no doubt contributing to widespread rural distrust of the PCs on the issue. He was elected as a Wildrose MLA in April 2012.
In June this year, by the way, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Mr. Anglin’s civil claim against Alberta’s Chief Electoral Officer for interfering with his 2015 campaign as an Independent in Rimbey-Rocky Mountain House-Sundre could go ahead, so we are bound to hear more from him soon. But I digress.
In February 2012, with the Wildrose Party looking like a winner in the polls, the Sherwood Park News reported that Ms. Smith told residents of the bedroom community east of Edmonton that “if we form government, we will go back to the drawing board on all the lines proposed under Bill 50. We have committed to repealing Bill 50 and doing an independent needs assessment.”
“These decisions shouldn’t be made by politicians for political reasons, they should be made once the landowners, consumers and residential groups have had an opportunity to have some input into the hearings,” she told reporters that day. She warned that building unneeded multi-billion-dollar power lines would cause electricity rates to soar.
That, of course, was then. This is now. Although one does wonder how they could have failed to see it coming.
Evidence shows that the huge demand for power by AI data centres will have the same impact on power bills, despite claims by the government the centres will have to supply their own energy.
And about the only consultation with landowners and neighbours about the massive AI centres planned for Alberta are press releases announcing the projects and after-the-fact town halls like the ones in Lacombe and Redwater whose only goal is to get opponents to be quiet and stop bothering the government.
Of course, it was probably easier and more pleasant to listen to upset taxpayers and landowners when you were the leader of an upstart political party beloved by pollsters and journalists than it is when you’re the premier of a government who gets to jet off and hobnob with billionaires, presidents and princes in places like Mar-a-Lago and Dubai.
After all, you’ll get buttered up when you’ve got something they want, like a place to put an AI data centre, instead of jeered, badgered and booed by folks who will have to live with the consequences.
Apparently this phenomenon can impair a politician’s hearing.