Smith tells municipalities province open to working with ‘coalition of the willing’ on data centres

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith invited and addressed the leaders of the province’s municipalities on her government’s accomplishments.

Smith was the big speaker during day one of the Alberta Municipalities annual general meeting in Edmonton, which is set to run through Friday.

The conference comes as the provincial government is about to send voters to the polls for a 10-question referendum, the most prominent of which asks whether voters support remaining in Canada or whether the province should embark on a legally binding process regarding Alberta’s status in Canada.

Nine of the questions pertain to immigration and constitutional concerns, with those questions and the one on Alberta’s place in Confederation to be answered on Oct. 19.

Smith noted that people are voting for the second option to give her leverage in discussions with the current federal government.

“I think there are better ways to give me leverage,” said Smith. “We’ve got several other questions that are asking for a mandate for Alberta to have more authority to prioritize economic migrants, to ask temporary residents and students to pay a reasonable portion of their healthcare and education costs.”

The timing of the conference also comes as the province is doubling down on AI data centres, a point Smith acknowledged in her address.

“We are happy to work with the coalition of the willing, those municipalities that want to put their hands up and say, ‘I think we would like to help the tax base,'” said Smith.

Alberta has been moving quickly to position itself as a hub for data centre facilities. One of the more prominent projects is the Meta data centre being built in Sturgeon County, in the Industrial Heartland north of Edmonton.

The facility is slated to be powered by a power plant, with electricity supplied via natural gas.

Artificial intelligence and the speed at which it’s evolving is on the minds of those at the conference. A breakout session at the conference drew a packed room to discuss how AI can transform and drive operations within local government.

The man heading that discussion was Kris Andreychuk, the program manager for applied AI at the City of Edmonton.

He said he wanted the crowd he addressed, comprising people representing communities from Blackfalds to further north, to know he recognized a theme.

“People are hearing about this stuff. They’re up against real challenges, but there’s limited capacity in cities,” said Andreychuk. “There’s an opportunity for us to support one another.”

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David Boles, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, St. Albert Gazette.