The Saskatchewan NDP says the government’s message of supporting Canadian data sovereignty through the Bell AI data centre is not genuine — pointing out two American firms involved in the project which have ownership stakes belonging to the family of U.S President Donald Trump. Raising the issue during question period Monday, the Official Opposition called on the government to elaborate on how the inclusion of two future tenants of Bell’s AI data centre, Cerebras and CoreWeave, doesn’t undercut its argument on national data sovereignty. Cereberas Systems, a U.S. tech startup specializing in AI computing chips, lists 1789 Capital as an investor. Donald Trump Jr. serves as a partner at the venture capital firm. CoreWeave, formerly known as Atlantic Crypto Corporation, is an American cloud infrastructure tech firm based in Livingston, New Jersey. Trump reportedly purchased debt from the AI firm as part of a $50 million batch of purchases through December 2025 of various corporate and municipal bonds. Both firms are listed as tenants who will supply the centre’s compute hardware. “This is absolutely a threat to our sovereignty,” NDP MLA Brittany Senger told reporters Monday. “Having U.S. companies that Donald Trump, and the Trump family are investing in Saskatchewan, on Saskatchewan soil, frankly, should be terrifying.” During debate on Monday, Crown Investments Corporation Minister Jeremy Harrison pushed back on NDP criticism, highlighting Bell’s (BCE) Canadian ownership, the size of its investment in the province and the fact countless American firms work in the province. “There are a lot of American companies that are working here in Saskatchewan, who work subject to Canadian laws, subject to Canadian regulation, who pay taxes in Canada or royalties,” Harrison said, offering potash giant Mosaic as an example. “With regard to this project, Bell Canada is clearly not an American company, and Bell Canada obviously are running a business in which they have tenants.” When re-asked if the Trumps’ involvement with the two U.S. firms is worrying, Harrison minimized the concern. “I have no idea what the ownership structure of individual companies are. I think that this has been thrown out there on a whole bunch of different companies, about what their ownership or who owns shares or whatever,” he said. “The reality is these companies are subject to Canadian laws and regulations. That’s a partnership between Bell and them. The government is not involved in who Bell has as tenants in these projects.” NDP Leader Carla Beck was blunt in her response to Harrison’s claim of not knowing the details of the data centre’s operation. “The minister for CIC, who pretends, usually, to know everything, is suggesting he doesn’t know who is investing in these companies,” she told reporters following question period. “One of the companies was over a billion-dollar investment. In another, Donald Trump [Jr.’s] hedge fund bought out a significant portion of their debt. I think it’s frankly ridiculous to suggest otherwise by the minister.” Harrison also argued it would be impossible keep every aspect of the data centre project a completely Canadian endeavour — given there are no domestic microchip manufacturers that could supply the project. “You actually can’t source these things from a Canadian manufacturer,” he said. “But as an example of how closely our economies are tied in a lot of ways. The architecture of NVIDIA chips is actually done in Saskatoon by Siemens.” Beck and the opposition renewed their calls for more transparency on data centre project from the province, citing residents’ concerns as evidence of a lack of consultation. “Releasing the MOU or providing the public with information would be very helpful in terms of just even seeing if the minister truly does know anything about who the tenants are in this data centre,” Senger added. “That again is something that the government should have disclosed and should have an understanding of before this project goes through.”
