Bell Canada (BCE) has said it will not share technical documents with a Saskatchewan First Nation that is demanding more details surrounding the company’s AI data centre being built near Regina. Standing Buffalo Dakota Nation Chief Rodger Redman originally sent a letter to BCE President and CEO Mirko Bibic on Oct. 2, stating the company’s AI data centre project in the Rural Municipality (RM) of Sherwood is of such a scale that the First Nation requires a “clear understanding of its technical basis, environmental implications and approval processes.” Redman argued that the centre is being constructed on unceded traditional Dakota territory and as a result, the nation must undertake its own assessment of the development and determine how Standing Buffalo’s rights have been considered. In his letter, Redman requested a wide range of documents including correspondences with regulators and technical documents pertaining to the centre’s cooling system, the lifecycle of its computing equipment and any planned expansions, including power generation. On Oct. 16, Dan Rink, president of AI infrastructure and strategy for Bell AI Fabric, responded to Redman’s letter. In his response, Rink touched on various topics highlighted in Standing Buffalo’s concerns, providing publicly available information on the centre’s cooling system, water and power usage, equipment recycling, in addition to the eventual decommissioning of the centre. He also offered to meet with the chief and band council to answer questions and speak on any concerns. However, Rink stopped short of promising the requested documentation. “Many of the records you requested are technical reports, commercial agreements and regulatory correspondence. Bell does not release these outside the regulatory processes they were prepared for or the agreements that govern them,” he wrote in the response. Standing Buffalo has since set a deadline of Nov. 16 at 5 p.m. for Bell to confirm if it will share the requested information and take part in the Nation’s review process. Standing Buffalo had previously threatened to initiate “substantial and far-reaching legal proceedings” if BCE did not reply to Chief Redman’s initial letter. The Nation noted any meeting with BCE will be treated as information sharing and will not replace Crown consultation or represent Standing Buffalo’s approval or consent of the project. The scope of Bell’s AI data centre project near Regina is now much larger than the original vision. First planned as a 300-megawatt (MW) facility, BCE now intends to construct a 1.2-gigawatt (GW) facility over an area of more than 1,000 acres in the RM of Sherwood. The project now ranks as one of the largest investments in Canadian history. CTV News, CP24 and BNN Bloomberg are divisions of Bell Media, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of BCE Inc.
