Alberta technology minister met with jeers at first town hall over AI data centres by The Canadian Press, August 20, 2026, City News Everywhere
LACOMBE – Alberta’s technology minister was jeered, badgered and booed late Wednesday by a room packed with hundreds of people over the province’s plans for an artificial intelligence data centre.
Nate Glubish was in the central town of Lacombe for the first in a series of town halls touting the windfall the mega-facilities could bring.
Dozens of people lined up to ask questions, but none who made it to the microphone before the event ended offered an endorsement.
There was also little trust in the Alberta government to regulate an industry poised to invest billions of dollars in the province to feed a growing global computing demand.
“Albertans do not want data centres,” said one man who came from the neighbouring town of Ponoka.
Another woman told Glubish to “get your boxing gloves on” if another AI data centre was being planned for the region.
“Your words are nice, you explain things well, but I don’t trust you, and I think that the people in this room agree with me,” she said to big applause.
Bek MacIntosh, a high-profile opponent of a data centre in the nearby town of Olds, called her and the community’s fight against the facility for more than eight months “pure hell” and “psychological warfare.”
MacIntosh said the government should put proper safeguards in place for locals.
Glubish, in response, said an application to build a natural gas facility to power the proposed massive data centre complex in Olds was denied due to its proximity to a residential area.
He apologized for the regulator’s timeline and promised the government is looking at specific setback rules.
AI water and air contamination, including PFAS, spreads far and wide, there are no setback rules that will protect Albertans or wildlife and fish from it.
He also said data centre sites need to be far from residential areas, and that Premier Danielle Smith’s government is looking at setback provisions.AI data centres are being forced on the world by Trump and his ass-licking fucking American tech billionaires. Put their mass surveillance, kid and women abusing, polluting noisy hideously ugly massive shit mansions in the USA where they belong. We don’t want their stolen lying error laden Nazi AI slop and we don’t want the Nazi’s data centres harming Canadians
MacIntosh later said Glubish avoided addressing the more worrisome impacts of the facilities, such as water.Of course the douche fucker did. What’s he gonna say? We expect all Alberta water supplies to be contaminated with heavy metals, biocides, cancer causing PFAS and other toxic chemicals in a few short months after AI data centre start-up, and we expect many Albertans will lose their water supply altogether – but the American billionaires promise they’ll be happy to sell alternate water (tarsands waste water?) to all citizens harmed.
She said she doesn’t trust that Olds is safe from future data centre proposals.
“It’s delightful to hear those words but absolutely useless after all these months,” MacIntosh told reporters.
Some who spoke at the event also aired concerns about the potential abuse of personal data and global surveillance.
One woman said the technology represents the weaponization of human data, a push for digital identification and other measures that she said equated to treason.If Fucker Carney forces digital ID on all Canadians under the guise of protecting kids by violating their charter rights and banning them from social media to fulfill Trump’s digital alignment demands, I will end my internet service, and stop using email and the internet. It’s not worth the harms coming from Carney & Solomon and their AI invasion (to please the orange kid rapist), the American Nazi AI fuckers, and Canadian digital fucking creeps like Shopify’s head douche.
Another speaker expressed concern about AI stealing jobs and called it an existential threat that the government cannot control.There will be no controls or regulations, Mark Carney’s dirty boy, Evan Solomon, already publicly stated there will be no regulation of AI in Canada, no matter how many kids it murders (eg Tumbler Ridge), makes commit suicide and or murder, or how many women and kids it undresses and puts into porn without consent, never mind how many cancers or other illnesses AI data centres cause, or how dramatically they escalate climate chaos.
Glubish said there are broad fears about AI and its use, and that any technological tool can be abused if it’s not closely regulated.
He said that AI, as a tool, isn’t inherently bad — it depends on whether it is used responsibly.FFS Glubish! Of course AI is bad, it’s stolen, never mind all the bad uses for it that are planned globally by the very bad humans, including Trump, Smith and Carney, that are forcing it on us!
“There are folks who said similar things about computers, similar things about calculators,” he said.Fucking bullshit. I grew up with those coming into use, I never heard such concerns. UCP just fucking lie and lie and fucking lie
Others raised concerns about how the government plans to enforce the cleanup of data centre sites if they end up closing. One speaker worried that the taxpayer would bear the costs.
Glubish said the government would enforce the polluter-pays principle.
Oh ya? When is UCP going to make Encana repair the Rosebud aquifers it illegally frac’d and contaminated twenty-two years ago? When is UCP going to make oil and gas companies, most of them American, clean up their over $360B in toxic messes left behind after their greedy years of multi billion dollar profit raping across Alberta? When is UCP going to shut down the tarsands and keep them shut down until the companies, mostly American, fulfill their promised legally required clean up of their massive very full toxic waste lakes? Obviously never since industry is pushing AER to let them dump mostly America’s toxic tar waste into the Athabasca water shed, with UCP and AER keen to bend over for American polluters, again and again. Carney will likely name dumping the waste directly into the Athabasca River a nation building project along with his disgusting MOU with the evil Nazi Queen Smith. We are guaranteed that AI data centres and their toxic waste will never be cleaned up either. The only things UCP are good at, is lying, enabling American polluters, breaking the law, lying, serving Trump and Putin funded separatists working to destroy Canada, making it easier for the fucking Americans to invade, and letting oil and gas companies, mostly American, frac and please as they like and not have to clean up after sucking out hundreds of billions of dollars in profits over decades. Alberta is the stupidest jurisdiction on earth, after America.
“(AI centres are) not drilling holes into the ground and they’re not pulling up chemicals out of the ground. This is just a warehouse with computers in it,” Glubish said to some heckling.
AI data centres add their own toxic chemicals. They can’t operate without them. Their buildings are not just full of computers. And, in Alberta they are powered by frac’d natural gas, which does require putting many holes in the ground, and injecting massive amounts of toxic chemicals, and massive volumes of water, most of which is lost permanently to the hydrogeological cycle, and thus, removed from future use. Frac’ing is also terrible to live by, causing clouds of toxic air pollution, invasive noise, vibrations, earth quakes, road damages (which tax payers and only taxpayers pay to repair), etc etc. etc.
Wednesday’s crowd was tough from the get-go.
When Glubish took to the podium, one attendee asked him to make a land acknowledgment, given the impact data centres have on land use.
Glubish agreed and delivered an on-the-spot recognition of the territory’s history, naming the treaties that span Alberta and the Métis Nation of Alberta.
He was promptly booed by some in the community hall.
“If you don’t like the acknowledgment, I’m sorry that I’m not perfect. I’m just a human here,” he said.
As a political staffer tried to bring the event to a close, he was met with loud protests from those who had been waiting to speak with the minister.
Moderator Vitor Marciano said he gave most people extra time to ask questions.
“There has been some misinformation here, but I’m not sure it’s coming from the stage,” he said.Little shit ex Wildrose Douche Fucker Marciano lies for the lying UCP.