As Canadian politicians and CEOs continue to promote data centres under the banner of digital sovereignty, a proposed project for Alberta not only threatens to place data in the hands of the U.S. government, but is being developed by a MAGA-supporting company.
DeSmog recently revealed how a high proportion of proposed data centre projects in Alberta are being developed and/or operated by foreign companies, putting Canadian data and privacy at risk, particularly due to sweeping legal powers wielded by our increasingly unstable southern neighbour. This frightening situation just got worse.
A MAGA-adjacent U.S.-based company with a long history of donations to Republican politicians is backing a new Alberta data centre proposal. Kansas City-based Diode Ventures LLC, a subsidiary of Black & Veatch, is proposing the Goldfinch Technology Park southwest of Edmonton, according to its website.
Black & Veatch is an engineering giant with 13,000 employees, revenues of $5.1 billion and a registered political action committee (PAC) whose contributors include 12 of 14 executive leaders listed on its website. DeSmog looked at the specific beneficiaries of this PAC to better understand the political leanings of the company behind the Goldfinch project, and identified at least seven key supporters of President Trump.
The Black & Veatch PAC donated to David Rouzer, a conservative Republican congressman who introduced a bill last year to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. When he was a senator in North Carolina, Rouzer wrote a bill requiring the state to ignore scientific warnings about sea level rise. The Trump-supporting representative was also one of 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election just hours after a mob attacked the Capitol building on January 6.
The PAC has also donated to Bruce Westerman, a Republican representative from Arkansas and chair of the House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources. Westerman recently launched a dubious congressional investigation against 19 environmental nonprofit groups described by his committee as “radical” and “extremist,” including such mainstream organizations as the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Westerman also followed President Trump’s lead and voted in favour of cutting funding to USAID, National Public Radio, and the Public Broadcasting Service. Last year the congressman joined 211 other Republican members who voted against releasing the Epstein files.
Steve Daines, a Republican senator from Montana and climate denier who said in 2019 “to suggest that [climate change] is human-caused is not a sound scientific conclusion,” is another beneficiary. In addition to receiving funds from the Black & Veatch PAC, Daines also accepted donations from ConocoPhillips, Koch Inc. and the Club for Growth, which has long opposed climate action and the Paris climate change agreement.
Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican senator and former House member from West Virginia, is another recipient from the PAC. Capito praised Trump for withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, calling it part of the “Obama administration’s anti-coal agenda.” She has long been a proponent of the fracking industry and previously voted against a bill that would have limited methane emissions from oil and gas drilling on public lands.
Jodey Arrington is a Republican House representative from Texas who the PAC has also funded. Arrington has pledged to defend the oil and gas industry from what he describes as the “left’s radical climate narrative.”
“I believe the climate is changing, but I do not buy into the premise that human activity is driving that,” he recently said. Arrington has a lifetime rating of one percent from the League of Conservation Voters and received more than $190,000 in oil and gas donations in 2022, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks money in politics.
Does this sound like a company aligned with Canadian values? The Black & Veatch PAC has also made donations to Democratic candidates, which have increased significantly in recent years. However, given the long list of MAGA hardliners benefiting from the company’s political donations, this seems cold comfort to Canadians worried about who controls our digital privacy.
Under the 2018 CLOUD Act, the U.S. government can demand an American company controlling data, regardless of its location or local privacy laws, to release that data to American regulators.
“Under the CLOUD Act, any American entity can be compelled to hand over its data, even if that data disclosure is in violation of other laws,” Natasha Tusikov, associate professor in the Department of Social Science at York University told DeSmog.
Alberta has become ground zero for a massive build-out of data centres, representing 90 percent of proposed projects in Canada, which could require up to 21 GW of gas-fired generating capacity – a number one expert described as “absurdly high.” This bonanza of AI building will massively increase Canadian emissions as well as threats to our privacy. Having a MAGA-aligned parent company in the mix only makes matters worse.
Protecting our digital sovereignty should be a national priority. Yet, Ottawa seems to be ignoring the frightening implications of the CLOUD Act and is instead trotting out vague platitudes in its Responsible Data Centre Development Principles, enthusiastically endorsed by a variety of American tech giants.
Why is there no national mandate requiring Canadian ownership of data centres? Paging Prime Minister Carney…
