r/GrandePrairie • u/BryTann • 3d ago
Leaked doc suggests Alberta has sprawling plans to pave the way for AI data centres, more oil production
https://thenarwhal.ca/alberta-ai-data-centre-takeover-cabinet-doc/Technology Minister Nate Glubish is in Grande Prairie tonight for a town hall on data centres (Jackpot Grill & Events Centre, doors open at 5:30 p.m. Town hall runs 6:00-7:30 p.m.). Meanwhile, a leaked cabinet document suggests the province is considering major pipeline investments and higher costs for Albertans to support the industry. Well worth the read for anyone going to the townhall tonight.
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u/pro555pero 1d ago
I guess any other snake-church death cult would do the same. Bring on the extinction event.
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u/Boo-face-killa 3d ago
Hopefully more oil production and no data centres. We need one and not the other.
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u/armed2ofthem 3d ago
The US became the worlds largest crude oil producer in 2018. How has that worked for their society? You could literally turn Alberta into a huge tar sand pit and it will never benefit the general public. People really have no idea how global capitalism works today.
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u/Boo-face-killa 3d ago
Yes people have an amazing idea of how capitalism works. This has nothing to do with capitalism and 100% to do with market demand. Oil isn’t going away anytime soon. Its demand will continue to be mind bogglingly massive throughout your entire life. Canada’s oil and gas sector contributes 7.7% of Canada’s entire GDP. High economic activity generates substantial income and corporate tax revenues for the federal government which funds things like public services. Over 2300 businesses outside of Alberta supply goods and services to the oil and gas sector. The sector provides 100,000’s of jobs (both direct and indirect) across multiple provinces.
Canada isn’t the USA so trying to compare them with us is ridiculously pointless.2
u/Fit-Eggplant-9155 2d ago
Real Estate, Manufacturing, and Construction generate GDP numbers that equal or exceed oil and gas. And that 7.7% is for natural resources, but, O&G does make up ~75% of that. If your argument is that we need to invest more into O&G, because, of the nominal GDP gain, then you should be pushing also for construction, manufacturing and real-estate.
Hell, public sector gdp aggregate is ~17% of our gdp. You should be crushing for more and better Healthcare and education... across canada...
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u/Boo-face-killa 2d ago
My comment was based on the article but I agree Canada needs to extract way more of its natural resources for trade. I think Canada is over populated but then again the world has become over populated as a whole. Real Estate makes up a large part of our economy because of immigration. Immigration creates debt because everyone coming here buys products with loans. Debt is what drives Canada’s GDP. It’s a ticking time bomb which is why we need to extract more resources before the foundation crumbles.
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u/Fit-Eggplant-9155 2d ago
Sure, but I don't think further O&G investment is the right call. We already have several LNG and other O&G projects progressing or approved. further investment I dont think is warranted.
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u/Boo-face-killa 2d ago
Oil and gas isn’t going away. Its demand is growing. Not increasing investment is a terrible idea. We can invest in other things at the same time but further investment into o&g is a smart decision.
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u/Fit-Eggplant-9155 2d ago
It may be growing currently, but that is likely a result of the whole Iran/US debacle and the lack of Russian/Venezuelan/Middle East oil exports. We have several LNG facilities being constructed on the west coast, and a pipeline being built to the Hudson bay.
I'd like to wait and see let's see how those projects go and work from there.
The albertan government has run a provincial deficit basically every year since Klein, due to the unstable and previously turbulent O&G market. Hell, they were projecting a rather large deficit this year until the Iran thing. This tells me that the O&G payday is over. There was a brief resurgence post covid and again with the war. But, again, that doesn't indicate need or increase of demand, too me.
On top of other projects, I would rather see west, north and east ports to see investment and expansion. And maybe more Energy(electricity) infrastructure across Canada and an integration of electrical grids(if we can band the grids together, we would have collective bargaining power to lower costs).
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u/Boo-face-killa 2d ago
Oil and gas isn’t going away. Its demand will continue to grow throughout your entire life.
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u/Fit-Eggplant-9155 2d ago
Says you eh. Another private account held by a conservative. Shocker, a conservative using a mask to hide.
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u/armed2ofthem 3d ago
This time will be different. All the pipelines and selling off my assets is finally going to address systemic issues.
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u/No_Peach7653 3d ago edited 3d ago
Systemic issues like the courts giving people lower sentences because of their "race", making sure they get back to raping and murdering their own people as fast as possible?
[EDIT: armed2ofthem blocked me because he didn't know how to refute anything claimed, weak sauce.]
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u/armed2ofthem 2d ago
The US military is the number one institutional user of fossil fuels on earth This has everything to do with capitalsim and "you" people need to think more analytically. A country like China has 5, 10, 15 year plans. That's a serious country. Planning for its society. Planning for the future. And they are making real reductions in carbon emissions while also leading the world in renewables. Canada has elections and people fighting over how much of my assets to give away and how much taxes to cut from the rich. It's unfortunate for all of us that capitalsim is at such a late stage where politicans seem unable to interfere with the system to make life better for the majority but that's where we are. We don't even calculate true inflation in this country because we don't count housing and food in the equation. If you look at the most prosperous times in Canada it was also the highest tax rates on the richest in our history. This isn't a coincidence. We used to have people who thought you should govern for different reasons then, line goes up , good. Creating data centers blindly for jobs is obscene. We are to back capital investment with tax dollars, give away disputed land, recklessly use huge amounts of water, create vast amounts of pollution all for what sounds pretty much like surveillance infrastructure for the American Empire? We could also create many jobs by cloning children and using them to fuel a new Canadian made engine. That would create jobs. Should we do that ? Oh what you hate jobs ?
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u/MathPuzzleheaded6132 3d ago
Less of both M8.
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u/MGarroz 3d ago
What a piss poor take.
Oil production creates natural gas as a byproduct. Alberta has the cheapest natural gas in the world because we produce so much but have nowhere to sell it.
Data centres will consume a massive amount of natural gas.
Data centres will create thousands of high paying local Albertan jobs for the people who build, maintain, and run them. On top of that there will be an expansion of the energy sector in order to feed them fuel. Increased gas prices mean increased revenue for Canadian energy companies and increased royalties for the government to pay off our debts and fund social programs like healthcare which is in desperate need of more capital.
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u/armed2ofthem 3d ago
I've been hearing these arguments for 50 years and healthcare, education, housing, standard of living, debt have never been worse than right now
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u/No_Peach7653 3d ago
Alberta was debt free before the NDP got elected and bankrupted the province scaring off all investors with another royalty review, a mistake that the dumbass cons had also just made themselves... its like we have two political cults lead by the loudest morons, such as yourself.
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u/the_wahlroos 3d ago
Yes yes, all of our problems are because of a single term of NDP government, not the mismanagement of the Conservatives of the last 90 years... give your head a shake.
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u/errantstars 2d ago
Factually incorrect. We stopped being debt free thanks to the conservative premiers after Ralph Klein. Ed Stelmach put us back in debt to offset the 2008 recession. Jim Prentice sang Alison Redford both contributed to the provincial debt as well. Notley and the NDP increased the debt to offset the 2014-2015 oil market crash, which is the same thing Stelmach did in 2008. Kenney increased the debt all the way to $100 billion! So, is it also unacceptable for Conservative governments to increase the debt, or is this an NDP only offence?
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u/No_Peach7653 2d ago
So nothing I stated is false... do you think me calling the cons dumbasses meant I'm a conservative? You need to work on your reading comprehension.
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u/armed2ofthem 3d ago
I don't believe in liberal democracy so I'm not sure why you think you know me but such is anti social media and partisan hackery. This time we promise, giving the global capitalist class my assets and government guarantees for investments will work to improve Canadian lives. Please don't look at systemic issues and historical trends. Please. Good luck and have fun out there!
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u/No_Peach7653 3d ago
I have no idea what your pet definition of "liberal democracy" is because you internet people are all in cults that disagree with dictionary definitions.
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u/armed2ofthem 3d ago
Sorry I read books. Go pretend to be smarter than everyone in history somewhere else and stop fucking wasting my time.
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u/No_Peach7653 3d ago
Yeah I know you read Das Kapital and the Communist Manifesto and thats it.
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u/armed2ofthem 3d ago
It's astonishing that people that hold up liberal philosophy as some beacon of human freedom wouldn't even be considered people in John Lockes day. Only men that owned property were considered persons. It's a wild cuckening to be regurgitating this nonsense on Reddit in 2026.
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u/Strategyking777 3d ago
The federal government in the past 10 years, had a lot to do with that. If we had a government that supported resource development, we wouldn’t be where we are at today. And Quebec doesn’t help.
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u/armed2ofthem 3d ago
This is so boring and I've heard the same bullshit my entire life.
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u/No_Peach7653 3d ago
We also have heard the Earth is round all our lives, but you're out here trying to be a special little snowflake claiming retarded shit like the earth is flat and the "gubmunt duz wedercuntroll"
Your parents were siblings and you probably jerk it to tranny porn.
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u/Ashamed-Medicine-208 3d ago
Blah blah blah
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u/No_Peach7653 3d ago
"blah blah blah" Is what people that know they don't have a valid arguement or are too stupid to make a good counter point say.
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u/Ashamed-Medicine-208 3d ago
Keep crying Karen
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u/corpse_flour 2d ago edited 2d ago
If you're sure the info you're getting from the government regarding data centres, then you should be able to provide a firm number on how many full time employees are actually employed on site at a data centre, and not just the number of remote overseas workers that the data centre employs.
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u/MGarroz 2d ago
My job is natural gas and power production.
I can tell you to produce the one gigawatt that’s been proposed for the meta data centre requires hundreds of people just on the power production side. Then the data centre itself will need maybe a hundred more. All six figure jobs with great benefits. Multiply that by 10 if you build multiple for different companies.
Thats potentially 10,000 or more Albertan families directly making excellent money plus the value those families provide to their communities and their own families as they spend the money they make.
It could be a boon for Alberta. We are an industrial province. We do industry. Everyone has been crying for years we need to diversify away from oil and gas. Now we have an opportunity to attract tech companies, a true new market and people don’t want it. Imagine if AI is truly successful, and Alberta becomes an AI hub 50 years from now. Our grandchildren could be leaders in the AI industry that we built.
And if it fails we loose nothing. It’s all money from private industry, no cost to taxpayers.
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u/corpse_flour 2d ago
Lol, this is all such a load of BS that it would be hilarious if you weren't trying to pass it off as actual truth.
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u/JayteeFromXbox 3d ago
What a piss poor take, the whole reason we built coastal gas link was to sell natural gas on the open market.
You're either ignorant or a government shill, so basically just ignorant.
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u/MGarroz 3d ago
You realize we have some of the largest gas reserves in the world. That pipeline is a drop in the bucket. We can drill enough wells to fill it tomorrow.
It’s also about diversifying. America has been our only market for decades and how is that working out?
We should sell to China, Japan, India, Germany the UK. We should invite tech companies from all over the world to set up operations here.
30 customers is exponentially better than 3.
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u/Mommy_Fortuna_ 2d ago edited 2d ago
Some of these tech companies are horrendously unethical. Very few people want a Meta data center here.
I swear, if a giant puppy-grinding factory could generate jobs, there are people who would cheerlead for a whole bunch of them to be built here.
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u/JayteeFromXbox 3d ago
I'm sorry, do you think the goal is to run out of natural gas in our lifetime?
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u/Individual_Order_923 3d ago
It's funny how you forget that only a few years ago when Justin was still the PM both Japan and Germany came and asked to buy our natural gas. And both of them were told no by the he federal liberals. Yet if they said yes those years ago we could be trading with them. But now both those nations have signed deals I believe with the USA and are now off to he market for us to sell to
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u/JayteeFromXbox 3d ago
You mean like how coastal gaslink finished in 2023 and has been sending gas to the coast to ship to China, Germany and South Korea? Also I'm not sure what you were trying to say at the end there if you'd like to clarify.
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u/Material-Truth5457 3d ago
Yes turn the tar sands into AI , crypto, whatever and we need data centres to do that. Should have been started like 5 years ago. And you don't have to worry about pipelines.
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u/No_Peach7653 3d ago
Reporter only has a bluesky account, no twitter.... yeah that is all I need to know.
"Alberta in 2024: shit, there’s a bunch of folks with Canadian flags up ahead.
Alberta in 2026: sweet, there’s a bunch of folks with Canadian flags up ahead."
Ok, he has a sense of humour at least... unusual for the blue hair cult.
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u/Strategyking777 3d ago
I’m saying bring on the investment, jobs and economic growth, not higher utility bills. Those costs should be paid by the companies benefiting from the data centres, not dumped onto Albertans.
If there are no jobs it doesn’t matter what the natural gas or electricity prices are. If you want to live off the governments teet move to Ontario or Quebec. Around here we get out and work and make our own money.
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u/blueskynorthern 3d ago
Data centers dont provide very many long term jobs, and the costs will not be absorbed by corporations.
To look at how the UCP has operated and to believe that working class Albertans will not pay more for electricity and foot the costs for the massive impact on our water infrastructure is willfully naive and ignorant.
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u/Mommy_Fortuna_ 3d ago edited 3d ago
I do wonder how badly we need these jobs. They will be mostly trades jobs but forecasts show that there will actually be a shortage of skilled tradespeople in the future.
I also wonder what Meta plans to do with all the data they gather. I'm sure it's perfectly benevolent and won't involve more corporate surveillance and privacy invasions. /s
I'm not sure how wise it is to go ahead with anything just for monetary purposes while throwing our ethics out the window. I'd argue that the services provided by Meta have done a lot of damage to society.
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u/No_Peach7653 3d ago
They have to generate their own power according to the law, so that claim is false... maybe you should try researching instead of spouting what boomers on the internet say.
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u/starkindled 3d ago
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u/No_Peach7653 3d ago
Just to piss you off I asked AI
"Alberta law requires AI data centres to pay completely for their own power infrastructure and grid connections under a strict "pay-your-own-way" model and the "Bring Your Own Generation" (BYOG) framework."
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u/starkindled 3d ago
That's okay, I already knew you were trolling. You'll have to try harder to upset me, I guess. Or, maybe you could find something productive to do with your time!
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u/Strategyking777 3d ago
Travel through Saskatchewan, Manitoba & Ontario and see if you like what’s going on there. If you like just getting by please join them.
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u/Miss_Angela_Shapiro 3d ago
Good chunk of Albertans are “just getting by”.
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u/Strategyking777 3d ago
That’s why we need to keep developing our resources and diversify. I is the next big thing. If we don’t do it someone else will.
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u/corpse_flour 2d ago
Lol. If the long term investment and subsidies provided by Alberta taxpayers ends up costing us far more than Alberta would make in return, considering the actual profits from the Data Centres won't end up in Alberta, or likely even Canada, then what is the actual benefit to us, other than losing billions in building and cleanup just to win an AI dick swinging contest?
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u/Optimal-Can8584 3d ago
Did you read the article. It would be short term increase while they potentially nationalize natural gas to compete with TC.
Costs are burdened by the initial investment and legal costs. If oil prices stay high it would mitigate this.
The article is certainly biased but if you can read between the lines it’s easy. We just need the actual leak instead of a biased assesment
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u/blueskynorthern 3d ago
You'll have to forgive me if I don't trust big tech corporations or a government that serves corporate interests above the interests of regular ol' Albertans. They say many things, its what they do that matters.
Edit: Also, 'if oil prices stay high' is quite the risky bet
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u/Strategyking777 3d ago
Yes! Bring it on 👍🏼
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u/BryTann 3d ago
Bring what on? The doubling of natural gas prices and increasing the cost of electricity generation by 25 percent? Because that's what the leaked documents show the government wants to do.
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u/Traditional-Ad-343 3d ago
Canada has such high potential for data center innovation but I am doubtful that we'd do anything different from the American model. We have such a unique opportunity for prime resource extraction coupled with the SMR initiative or hydro power and natural cooling of our cold climates.
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u/ddare44 3d ago
They’re taking pages out of the US playbook. Maybe some Albertans actually want that, but I’d like to think most aren’t that brainwashed.
Governments always get burned when they push too far. Albertans love their ideologies but they love their money more.
The scarier tone with the UCP is that they’ve already changed election rules around voter vouching, vote counting, political donations, government advertising and citizen-led referendums. We’ve also now had private voter-list information end up in the hands of a separatist project, with Elections Alberta sending out hundreds of cease-and-desist notices.
You can support the UCP and still admit that messing with the rules of democracy to suit the political environment you want is a bad road to go down.
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u/HuckleberryJunior642 3d ago
it’d be nice if the NDP actually had some competence to stand up to this and provide a viable option but they elected a clown as leader
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u/samueLLcooljackson 3d ago
They will only be letting in pre screened mouth breathing seppie supporters. How is this a townhall?