By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter\u00a0<\/p>\n
(ANNews) \u2013 More than 100 people gathered outside the Legislative Assembly building in Edmonton on Oct. 4 to protest the provincial and federal governments\u2019 permissive approach towards building AI data centres.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Elder Taz Bouchier opened the rally with a land acknowledgement before tying the proposed 7.5-gigawatt Wonder Valley data centre near Grande Prairie\u2019s potential water usage to the oil industry\u2019s plans to release treated tailings fluids into the Athabasca watershed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen did people lose sight of how valuable water is to living? When money came into play. That\u2019s all these data centers are about,\u201d said Bouchier.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation is challenging the province\u2019s decision to award a water license of 24-million cubic metres to the Municipal District of Greenview for Wonder Valley without consulting the Treaty 8 First Nation, which relies on the Smoky River for its water.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the protest, Chief Sheldon Sunshine outlined a series of \u201cvery basic questions\u201d he has for data centre proponents, including whether existing rules are sufficient \u201cfor the size and scale of what is being proposed\u201d and whether there are sufficient water protections.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happens to our communities when these projects operate for decades? What happens to the land? What happens to the water? What happens to the wildlife? What happens to the air quality? What happens when multiple projects are operating in the same region? And perhaps most importantly, where is the assessment of the cumulative impacts?\u201d Sunshine asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t look at every project at one time and pretend the others don\u2019t exist. We have to look at the whole picture.\u201d<\/p>\n
As first reported<\/a> by online news outlet Canada\u2019s National Observer, Environment Alberta has exempted Wonder Valley from an environmental assessment.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are governments creating pathways to accelerate these developments before the public has confidence that the rules are strong enough? Why is the push happening so fast? What concessions are being made to attract these projects? Who negotiated those concessions?\u201d asked Chief Sunshine.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThose are reasonable questions. Asking them does not make us anti-development. It makes us responsible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n He emphasized that he understands the government\u2019s \u201ceconomic strategy behind these projects,\u201d in terms of attempting to create a new market for the province\u2019s substantial natural gas resources.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut economic development cannot come at any cost,\u201d said Sunshine.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou cannot build a new economy by putting the foundation of that economy on water that communities depend on, land that cannot be replaced, or an electrical system that people already rely on. You cannot call something responsible development simply because it creates jobs. Responsible development means understanding the consequences before you build.\u201d<\/p>\n Edmonton-Strathcona NDP MP Heather McPherson opened her remarks by \u201cacknowledging that Indigenous people in this country are on the front lines of this fight, and on the front lines of so many fights that we are being asked to fight as citizens right now,\u201d referring to First Nations\u2019 opposition<\/a> to Alberta\u2019s separatist movement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe all owe Indigenous people in this province a debt of gratitude for being on the front line, protecting our sovereignty, protecting our climate, protecting our water and our land,\u201d she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n McPherson called it greatly \u201cfrustrating\u201d that data centres are being fast tracked while crucial community needs are being unmet.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t build the homes that people need in this community, but we can build a data centre. We can\u2019t build clean water facilities for people in this country, but we can build a data center,\u201d she said. \u201cThe priority here for this government is to make billionaires wealthy at the expense of every single one of us here.\u201d<\/p>\n McPherson stressed that the consequences of AI are not just environmental, referring explicitly to its use to reduce jobs and as a weapon of war.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re being told it\u2019s going to make our life better,\u201d she said. \u201cYou tell that to the tens of thousands of public servants who are losing their jobs<\/a> because [Prime Minister] Mark Carney thinks AI can do that job for them. You tell that to the Iranian schoolchildren who were bombed<\/a> because AI made a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n None of the opponents of AI data centres are \u201cagainst technology\u201d or construction jobs, added McPherson.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re against getting ripped off. We\u2019re against our rights being subservient to the wealthy and the corporate people that are getting all [the benefits],\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter\u00a0 (ANNews) \u2013 More than 100 people gathered outside the Legislative Assembly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":923629,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-923628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=923628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/923628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/923629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=923628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=923628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=923628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}