Rebel News Podcast - August 06, 2026


EZRA LEVANT ｜ Inside the protest against Meta’s $13 billion Alberta data centre


Episode Stats


Length

44 minutes

Words per minute

171.78

Word count

7,715

Sentence count

382


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Tonight, Sheila Gunn-Reed and I went to a protest against a proposed Alberta data center.
00:00:05.320 We'll show you what people had to say. Might surprise you.
00:00:08.560 It's August 4th, and this is The Ezra Levant Show.
00:00:13.660 Shame on you, you censorious bug.
00:00:25.240 Oh, hi everybody. Ezra Levant here with my colleague Sheila Gunn-Reed.
00:00:28.500 We are in Morinville in northern Alberta, about an hour north of Edmonton, where for the last two hours there has been a protest against the big META data center.
00:00:41.000 I'm not going to say it's planned for Alberta.
00:00:42.620 They're building it already.
00:00:43.620 They're breaking ground.
00:00:45.080 It's going to be a huge project.
00:00:47.700 Thirteen billion dollars.
00:00:49.720 That's just the first phase.
00:00:51.480 Thousands of construction jobs.
00:00:53.600 Hundreds of permanent jobs.
00:00:55.680 A gas plant.
00:00:56.360 And Sheila, by the way, happens to live right there.
00:00:59.120 Sheila, tell me about the place, because this is not some pristine field and meadow with like Bambi everywhere.
00:01:08.320 This is a heavy industry place.
00:01:09.980 This is a heavy industry place.
00:01:11.700 It's in the industrial heartland.
00:01:13.660 It's where the city of Edmonton, Strathcona County and Sturgeon County come together.
00:01:19.460 And about 15 years ago, the industrial heartland was created.
00:01:23.040 All the land there in the area was zoned for heavy industry.
00:01:27.440 Heavy industry exists there already.
00:01:30.360 Some of it is currently in crop, but that's just while it kills time before it's turned into something else.
00:01:38.380 Maybe 10 years ago, there were a series of upgraders planned there.
00:01:42.320 When the bottom fell out of the oil industry, they were put on the shelf.
00:01:46.420 So this land has just been sitting there waiting for the next major industrial project.
00:01:51.120 And this is it.
00:01:52.340 So it's already been zoned heavy industry.
00:01:54.440 And if you know what zoning means, it's already been approved for smokestacks and boilers and stuff.
00:02:01.120 The kind of thing you would expect in an upgrader.
00:02:03.600 But instead, Meta said, well, we're going to build our stuff there for a lot of logistical reasons.
00:02:10.840 For a climate reason, as in it's easy to cool something in northern Alberta than let's say you're building a data center in the desert of Texas.
00:02:18.640 Well, not just the formidable climate that we live in, but access to water and access to natural gas, because the facility will be supported by its own natural gas generating plant.
00:02:31.740 That's the thing. These data centers, it's Elon Musk wants to put them in space.
00:02:35.780 He says you put them in space, it's solar powered and you don't have any issues of protesters.
00:02:41.620 I added that last part.
00:02:43.660 And that's what today was.
00:02:45.100 I came across a small article in the local newspaper here.
00:02:50.020 I think it was the St. Albert Tribune, if I could be wrong on that.
00:02:53.960 And it mentioned that a 20-year-old student named Ben Burial was organizing a protest.
00:03:00.060 And I remember when I was 20, I was a troublemaker a little bit myself.
00:03:03.540 I didn't really think, OK, this is going to be a long weekend, Sunday.
00:03:07.180 The weather's a little gloomy.
00:03:08.320 as I was driving out here Sheila I thought there's no way anyone's going to be here but
00:03:13.160 other than Ben and you and me there were I'd say 200 people here today and we did a lot of
00:03:20.180 interviews and that in itself I mean Sheila you live in a saner part of the world I live in Toronto
00:03:25.160 you go to a left-wing protest they see the rebel mic flag they immediately the walls they either
00:03:31.300 run or they get violent at the very least they say f off I'm not talking to you not a single
00:03:37.160 person here said i won't talk to you right some people recognize rebels in fact the very first
00:03:42.780 guy we saw which we were walking in he's wearing an ndp hat he said oh rebel well i have a different
00:03:47.380 point of view than you the only people who knew us they said well you might not agree with me well
00:03:52.860 yeah but let's let's have a conversation so there were climate activists and there were communist
00:04:01.900 activists and I put that to Ben the organizer because they weren't just like
00:04:07.240 they were speakers he had communists and climate extremists as speakers consider
00:04:12.580 joining the revolutionary communist party this is not one fight against one
00:04:18.540 AI data center this is a fight against the capitalist system we didn't
00:04:23.380 specifically try to coordinate with them to bring their their setup we didn't
00:04:27.520 want necessary we didn't plan to have the revolutionary communists set up a
00:04:31.420 table here uh they're just kind of a fixture at a lot of protests so they they kind of mobilize on
00:04:36.180 their own um but but he did speak he did speak uh i honestly quite honestly wasn't expecting him to
00:04:43.160 plug the the revolutionary revolutionary communists because this is sort of supposed to be a relatively
00:04:48.180 politically neutral like opposition to um data centers and to sort of the threat that they pose
00:04:54.800 to the community because this is a broad issue this isn't specific to the left or to the right
00:04:58.640 As he said, he did put that to him.
00:05:00.520 There was an extremist, I guess, left-wing element here.
00:05:04.040 An extreme in their views and not that they're violent.
00:05:07.120 A lot of anti-billionaire expropriate the billionaire and trillionaire people there.
00:05:13.560 And you want to expropriate what from Elon Musk?
00:05:16.700 Well, we'd start with some of his businesses.
00:05:19.900 What should be one Tesla? Is that a positive or a negative?
00:05:23.000 Well, what do you mean?
00:05:24.300 Well, environmentally, for example.
00:05:26.600 Well, I mean, I think there's some potential for electric vehicles to be good for the environment.
00:05:31.660 I think that they're not meeting that potential right now,
00:05:35.040 and that's because they're being used for the profit of this guy.
00:05:38.560 Google, Meta, Amazon.
00:05:40.860 These people are no friends of democracy.
00:05:44.160 Their funding, their greed, their dominance, their surveillance.
00:05:48.760 We are going to be what's called a panopticon society.
00:05:52.620 That is, they're going to monitor your every move.
00:05:56.940 They don't care for our health.
00:05:59.340 They don't.
00:06:00.540 Or our safety, let alone the health of the Sturgeon County wetlands.
00:06:05.480 These men are the ones really in power.
00:06:09.100 These politicians are their pawns in a generational monopoly game.
00:06:14.400 If this particular data center is not built,
00:06:18.560 you're still going to use your Facebook account, I'm guessing.
00:06:22.100 You're still going to use email.
00:06:23.320 You're still going to stream Netflix.
00:06:24.720 It would just be from a data center somewhere else, right?
00:06:26.860 But the question is, how much of the data center is used for just Internet?
00:06:32.520 And the answer is not much.
00:06:34.140 They're building and overbuilding data centers now because of the computational requirements for AI.
00:06:39.300 And AI is something that they're pushing so fast to make money that they're overlooking the downside, unfortunately.
00:06:46.520 There's a lot of people who are going to get jobs building this thing.
00:06:48.940 And if we don't build it here, like you say, it'll go up in some place in the States or, heck, in China.
00:06:55.240 And why can't Alberta have some industry?
00:06:58.760 Alberta can't.
00:06:59.380 Alberta can't.
00:06:59.860 But why not this one?
00:07:00.640 No, see, that's misrepresenting.
00:07:02.240 I'm not misrepresenting.
00:07:02.940 I'm just putting it.
00:07:03.980 Help me answer my question then.
00:07:05.760 Help me out.
00:07:06.320 You're answering the question by throwing out your own answer.
00:07:09.420 So my answer is this, consultation.
00:07:12.020 I don't think we're necessarily stopping local jobs.
00:07:15.160 I mean, when the jobs are stopping, we're stopping, theoretically, 3,000 temporary construction jobs,
00:07:22.120 which are largely probably not going to come from the community.
00:07:25.180 All of these decisions which impact our lives come down to their money, money stolen from the people.
00:07:33.500 The only time we are permitted a say is when their profits come under threat,
00:07:40.260 which only happens when the working class bands together.
00:07:45.160 What are your thoughts on Peter Thiel?
00:07:49.980 Well, personally, I think he's kind of a weirdo.
00:07:53.500 Well, you put his eyes in red, so it does look weird, but that was Photoshop.
00:07:58.680 Sure. Yes, I'm aware that the red is Photoshop.
00:08:01.580 So, well, then what do you think about him that's weird?
00:08:04.020 Well, I think that it's very interesting that he is so very anti-human.
00:08:11.200 He's very, he does not care about the social conditions of people, that's very clear,
00:08:16.760 but he doesn't seem to care about the lives of people either.
00:08:19.900 Can you give me an example? I've never heard that about him before.
00:08:23.120 Well, he, have you heard of Palantir?
00:08:27.700 Right, yes.
00:08:28.400 Right, and you know how he names all of his companies after evil things?
00:08:33.240 Because he's very interested in controlling people.
00:08:35.600 he's very interested in breaking down the people ourselves
00:08:39.000 and the backgrounds that we have.
00:08:41.440 And he's not interested in improving anyone's life but his own.
00:08:44.940 So has he said anything in particular?
00:08:47.400 Because you're saying you're characterizing him as weird and evil,
00:08:51.760 but yet you haven't actually given me an example yet.
00:08:56.000 Well, I don't think I can remember any of his quotes offhand.
00:09:00.600 It's very easy to find this stuff on the Internet.
00:09:02.740 Meta has poisoned water tables from Cheyenne, Wyoming, Oregon, you name it, across the border.
00:09:10.740 There's problems in Ontario being reported.
00:09:12.740 This protest will not be enough because they will come back and they will say,
00:09:17.740 Oh, we consulted the community. Oh, we consulted the land. Oh, we made sure to do everything right.
00:09:23.740 They write the laws and we are fucked by that.
00:09:26.740 We are not anti-technology.
00:09:29.140 We understand, though, that these people's wealth are coming off the backs of the workers,
00:09:34.000 of the working people of America, Canada, and the world.
00:09:36.860 I think SpaceX workers are some of the best paid people in America.
00:09:40.460 Okay, well, what about the guys who make the components, the chips that are being shipped in from charge?
00:09:45.540 I saw some amazing stories about literally welders who had shares in SpaceX who are now millionaires because of this IPO.
00:09:53.820 No. Like, I think I would love for every tradesman to be paid as well as SpaceX paid their people.
00:10:01.240 Yeah. And we could be doing that, except that we have people at the top who are parasitically sucking the money out of the pockets of the working people.
00:10:09.120 Electricians working on this project, their salaries are poised to double.
00:10:13.660 And when electricians make more, carpenters make more, pipe fitters make more.
00:10:18.780 Do you think these trades jobs are really low-quality jobs that won't come from the community?
00:10:25.560 Well, I'm more talking about the sort of maintenance jobs that need to be done once it's in operation.
00:10:31.220 A lot of those are sort of replacing, like my dad, he works in sort of the tech IT industry.
00:10:36.460 And he says a lot of these jobs within data centers are sort of just replacing components on computers that break and sort of general building maintenance.
00:10:47.020 the the work environment itself is incredibly hot regardless of like the cooling system that's sort
00:10:52.300 of that's out of like not part of this equation at all um and then of course they're incredibly
00:10:58.600 loud like people people in the data centers have to wear hearing protection at all times you know
00:11:03.560 that the people who stand to gain are wealthy foreign corporations and that this is not about
00:11:08.060 canadian data sovereignty we have a housing shortage in this this province why are we not
00:11:12.840 using the trades jobs to build out housing in a meaningful way? Why are we diverting them to
00:11:18.380 something that ultimately is going to be used to spy on the community? It's going to be used to
00:11:22.540 destroy the environment. It's going to be used to replace workers. Why are we not using tradesmen
00:11:29.100 whose skills are incredibly valuable and who we need more of in this province, especially brick
00:11:33.540 layers as well? I've heard that there's a huge shortage of brick layers. But the housing jobs
00:11:37.400 aren't there the electrician jobs are there and you're here protesting against them well but you
00:11:44.260 use electricians for housing you use electricians for for other industries that it should be the
00:11:49.560 responsibility of the government to attract jobs that are um attract jobs for these these people
00:11:56.080 that are beneficial to the community that are building out our public infrastructure but they
00:12:00.500 were willing to talk to us and tell us their viewpoint we were not sworn by antifa never did
00:12:05.160 i feel at risk and we were wandering around and and ben himself gave us 10 or 15 minutes which he
00:12:10.880 didn't even have to do and um i'm not impressed with all of his answers but the fact that he
00:12:16.180 answered is is interesting you had a capitalist transaction with the communists early on oh it
00:12:23.560 was so funny i wanted a pamphlet i wanted this pamphlet from the communist revolutionary communist
00:12:30.560 party and they insisted on charging me okay that's five dollars i have never in my life been
00:12:36.360 told to pay for propaganda but i thought it's too delicious not to pay five bucks to the communists
00:12:43.980 for a capitalist transaction i thought it was very funny can i ask you why you're focused on
00:12:48.940 data centers that seems a bit random help me out what's what was on your mind when you guys
00:12:54.120 decided to come here today uh i think that i'll take a copy of that and i'll i'll do some extra
00:13:00.780 reading at home but maybe i can put one of those in my pocket or something five bucks boy you're a
00:13:07.920 you know what i'm not even kidding when i say i don't carry cash on me these days okay up up you
00:13:14.560 know what it's very rare it's very rare to see someone selling a brochure but i love your sense
00:13:21.680 of capitalism i'll give you five bucks well we need to pay workers and purchase i know the free
00:13:28.060 market it's it's not uh you know sign me up i'll give you a five bucks the day that i can give you
00:13:33.280 this for free is the day that i know we've won yeah that would be unusual okay i'm ready to pay
00:13:38.380 can i do it on your phone there here i am engaging in an act of capitalism with my new communist
00:13:45.320 friends okay i think we we kind of exist within capitalism in the same way that there it goes
00:13:53.220 now some data center some data center somewhere process both sides of that all right i just
00:13:59.320 purchased five dollars worth of communist information supporting communism that's awesome
00:14:05.000 well i don't know if that was my purpose but i'm going to read this later just to go deep on the
00:14:11.140 I think it's good to try to understand, you know, other people's, what we're actually saying, you know, not what the news media says about us, that we're crazy terrorists and things like this.
00:14:23.460 I wouldn't certainly call you terrorists, at least not you guys, maybe some of your fellow travelers in other countries.
00:14:31.160 But I was just asking your colleague here, why data centers?
00:14:34.500 Why does that get stuck in your craw?
00:14:37.000 I think because people are angry about it.
00:14:38.960 So you're just sort of any revolution is a revolution. A communist joins any other revolution, right?
00:14:44.800 That's what Lenin would do.
00:14:46.120 Communists are just workers and students who want to fight against the system, who want a better life.
00:14:53.020 So if there's any fight against the system, a communist would join.
00:14:55.580 Of course, yeah.
00:14:56.840 So data centers is hot right now.
00:14:59.260 Yeah, people are really mad that they don't have control over their lives, over their community.
00:15:04.680 And people are trying to have a say.
00:15:06.400 And I think what's interesting about the data centers is it's broached the left and right divide.
00:15:11.960 Are there any right wingers here today?
00:15:13.500 Sorry?
00:15:14.000 Are there any right wingers here today?
00:15:15.460 I haven't talked to anyone specifically yet, but we've had people that, you know, we've had separatists come to these types of rallies.
00:15:22.100 Because a lot of what, like, the separatists want is, you know, a say over their life.
00:15:26.980 They want their life to be better.
00:15:29.040 How does shutting down this data center in Alberta change anything other than the AI will be used and will be made in China versus made in Canada?
00:15:39.640 Well, we wouldn't actually call for it to be shut down.
00:15:42.100 We would call for workers' control and for workers to decide what should happen.
00:15:45.680 So workers should be deciding that the AI data centers aren't being used for Palantir and to kill civilians across the world, for example, or to target migrants with ICE.
00:15:57.040 And the worker should also decide what type of facility it is.
00:16:02.960 It should be closed-loop water, which it supposedly is.
00:16:05.360 I don't really trust these people because they also said that they would bring their own electricity.
00:16:09.400 And that's already not true for at least the first two years of its creation, which Danielle Smith has admitted to.
00:16:16.420 So if there was a data center that was run by the proletariat, you'd support it?
00:16:21.800 If workers had control of their whole lives, yeah.
00:16:25.500 Yeah, like workers should be able to control the types of businesses that are around, the types of work that they do, everything like that.
00:16:33.740 And that includes data centers.
00:16:35.600 Marxism versus identity politics.
00:16:38.300 China's long march to capitalism.
00:16:40.300 So help me out on that one.
00:16:42.320 In your view, is that a good thing or a bad thing that China is becoming more capitalist?
00:16:46.940 A bad thing.
00:16:49.540 And why is that?
00:16:51.320 I think we've seen the decline in the conditions of the people in China as a result of their return to capitalism.
00:16:58.080 I think a critic would say that the Chinese middle class has grown very quickly.
00:17:04.460 There's no more famines.
00:17:05.980 There's a lot more housing and infrastructure.
00:17:08.460 I think a lot of people would point to electrification.
00:17:10.800 I mean, I'm very skeptical of China, but can you not acknowledge that the average Chinese person has more prosperity now?
00:17:18.800 I think a large part of that is just the historical product of combined and uneven development.
00:17:27.480 When you have a country that is, you know, backward for a very long time,
00:17:32.620 it's able to import the most modern forms of technique from without.
00:17:37.120 But what do you mean by backward? What was backward about it?
00:17:39.380 Economically, it was built on, you know, very backward forms of technology, right?
00:17:44.820 Like, the vast majority of the country were peasants existing in a very primitive state of production.
00:17:52.900 Don't you think that's because of communism?
00:17:54.700 No, the planned economy was able to revolutionize a lot of the productive forces in China.
00:17:59.200 And upon the basis of what remained of the planned economy, this gave them an advantage in the transition to capitalism.
00:18:07.340 Expropriate the billionaires.
00:18:09.560 How did that work in China when they sacked the capitalist class?
00:18:14.340 Did it make the poor people richer or did it just make the rich people poorer or dead?
00:18:20.380 There was a massive improvement in life.
00:18:23.900 Under Mao?
00:18:25.060 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
00:18:26.640 There was absolutely mistakes that were made.
00:18:28.740 But ultimately, including if you look at the Bolshevik revolution,
00:18:33.280 the fact that they went from the most backwards country in the world
00:18:37.720 to almost winning the space race, I think is a testament to the fact
00:18:42.160 that they were able to actually grow their economy.
00:18:44.080 So how did the Russian Revolution, how did it, why did it fall if it was so successful?
00:18:49.200 Because the capitalists continued to attack it.
00:18:53.900 Like, they don't want competing systems because the workers will look at the Russian Revolution,
00:19:02.140 have the Chinese Revolution, and will take inspiration from it.
00:19:05.380 I thought that communists, they believe that the workers should own the means of production,
00:19:09.740 but they believe in production.
00:19:11.260 Are you against building this factory?
00:19:13.820 I'm against building it for private enrichment of the billionaires.
00:19:19.540 So would you be in favor of it if it was owned by the government?
00:19:23.640 Not our government, not the Canadian government, not the Alberta government,
00:19:27.600 but a government of worker control, letting the people keep the products.
00:19:31.600 So let's say if there was like a cooperative or a collective of workers who said,
00:19:36.520 let's build a data center, would you support it in that case?
00:19:39.660 Well, it's preferable to the government owning it or the billionaires owning it.
00:19:44.240 But the problem, the key problem here is what this is going to be used for.
00:19:47.860 I agree that the Communist Party being here is rather interesting.
00:19:51.500 But I hope that you don't give the idea that this whole thing was organized by that.
00:19:55.520 They just said, hey, we agree this AI thing is not a good idea.
00:19:59.380 So they joined.
00:20:00.400 They're crazy.
00:20:01.680 But that is the way young people are.
00:20:03.660 When you look at Zoran Mamdani, when you look at AOC, communism and socialism are on the march.
00:20:12.000 And so we might say they're crazy.
00:20:14.840 Yeah, they're also having a renaissance.
00:20:17.440 And Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist in Silicon Valley, who is, you know, a turbo capitalist,
00:20:26.080 he said a lot of young people, their only experience with capitalism is negative.
00:20:30.140 Number one, student debt that they'll never pay down.
00:20:33.180 And number two, they'll never be able to buy a house.
00:20:36.460 So the things that make a person invest in the free market system, I own a house, I'm saving up, I'm paying down debt, I'm going to have something of value.
00:20:46.680 You know, especially in big cities, no young people can afford a house.
00:20:51.200 So if you're not seeing any of the fruits of capitalism, why would you support this system?
00:20:58.300 Why not be against capitalism?
00:20:59.880 Right, but there's a great irony in that.
00:21:02.880 because a lot of the people who will be working building the Meta data center
00:21:07.960 are probably roughly the same age as some of these young people protesting here today,
00:21:14.200 young Alberta tradespeople who will be making $250,000 a year as an electrician.
00:21:21.500 The data center is a solution to a lot of the problems that they're talking about here.
00:21:26.600 But I will point out that there was a third experience with capitalism
00:21:29.940 that one of these young communists pointed out, and that was COVID.
00:21:35.180 And the COVID crony capitalism that we saw with the government
00:21:40.240 and their friends getting handouts and the vaccines,
00:21:43.400 they brought that up too as one of their formative communistic experiences.
00:21:49.680 And that was one of about 20 things I heard today that made me say,
00:21:53.540 oh, I sort of have some common ground here.
00:21:55.840 Because it absolutely was crony capitalism.
00:21:59.160 And, you know, the most famous video I've ever participated in in my life was when I scrummed Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, on the streets of Davos.
00:22:11.220 Take a quick look at that.
00:22:12.540 Mr. Bourla, can I ask you, when did you know that the vaccines didn't stop transmission?
00:22:18.240 How long did you know that without saying it publicly?
00:22:21.180 Thank you very much.
00:22:22.240 I'm sorry.
00:22:22.680 Answer that question. I mean, we now know that the vaccines didn't stop transmission, but why did you keep it secret?
00:22:29.760 He was crony capitalism. He and his friends in government, Anthony Fauci, Teresa Tam, they made billions and so many companies.
00:22:41.840 Frank Bayless here in Canada with his ventilators, you know, close ties to the liberal.
00:22:48.300 It was all an incident. And you're exactly right. Thank you so much.
00:22:51.980 So that young woman, I said to her, what flipped you?
00:22:56.240 What made you a commie?
00:22:57.740 And she said COVID.
00:22:58.820 And at first I thought, what?
00:23:00.200 No, but I get it.
00:23:01.200 If that's what you think, if that's what the world says capitalism is, well, who wouldn't hate that?
00:23:07.060 How did you come to this way of thinking?
00:23:08.740 Was it your family, your school?
00:23:11.200 How did you become a communist?
00:23:12.720 I got mad during COVID that there was no plan for the economy, that profit was being made while people were losing their lives.
00:23:20.020 and that there was no, like, real discussion over anything that was going on.
00:23:25.640 I would say including the vaccines, not in, like, people shouldn't get vaccinated,
00:23:30.340 but in that there was these corporations that charged the Canadian working class
00:23:37.040 multiple times for single doses.
00:23:39.560 They charged the Canadian government took on the risk of the vaccines
00:23:43.360 and then the Canadian government bought the vaccines after.
00:23:46.520 And that made you a communist?
00:23:48.060 I was mad that there was no plan.
00:23:49.520 I was mad at the George Floyd killing, at the murder of George Floyd.
00:23:52.620 Hang on a second.
00:23:53.660 What you just described absolutely was a plan.
00:23:56.740 Like the COVID was totally about a plan, planning who could go where, planning curfews, planning.
00:24:02.840 The voters didn't get to control that.
00:24:04.080 We didn't get to decide that.
00:24:05.640 You know, Trudeau, who was it, Kenny?
00:24:09.220 These are the people that got to decide what we did, and I don't trust them.
00:24:13.320 But you want more power?
00:24:14.360 I mean, communism means government has the ability to make decisions.
00:24:18.740 Do you want to give more power to government?
00:24:20.600 I think we should have more referendums, actually.
00:24:22.880 I think we should have,
00:24:24.420 I think there should be a referendum
00:24:25.820 on nationalizing the oil bosses
00:24:27.640 and putting the oil companies under workers' control.
00:24:32.360 I think there should be referendums on data centers.
00:24:35.180 I think we should have more safe.
00:24:37.720 All right.
00:24:38.740 Well, you've certainly given me a lot to think about.
00:24:41.100 Nice to meet you.
00:24:41.680 What's your name?
00:24:42.320 Abby.
00:24:42.960 I'm Ezra.
00:24:43.700 Good to meet you.
00:24:44.160 What's your name?
00:24:44.800 My name's Caden.
00:24:45.740 Caden, good to meet you.
00:24:46.680 Have a great day.
00:24:47.080 Bye, guys.
00:24:47.460 If you're a tradesman in a pro-trades jurisdiction like Alberta, you'll be doing great, whether it's oil and gas, building data centers, whatever.
00:24:55.200 But you went to some, you know, second-rate university like Toronto Metropolitan University.
00:25:01.360 You got a degree in communication studies or whatever.
00:25:04.480 You got 50 grand in debt.
00:25:05.820 You can't buy a house.
00:25:06.640 You're not going to get the job of your dreams.
00:25:08.600 And so naturally, you're going to hate the billionaires, the gajillionaires.
00:25:12.880 And there were a number of things that I heard that rang a bell with me.
00:25:16.820 There was a guy, and we talked to him afterwards, and he was a little bit cryptic.
00:25:20.760 He said, I'm not going to tell you my name, and I don't want to show you my face.
00:25:23.780 He talked about being a voice actor who had his voice stolen, synthesized, and appropriated by AI.
00:25:32.720 I don't know the facts of his story.
00:25:34.880 It sounds plausible to me.
00:25:36.640 We know that AI is hoovering up basically the entire Internet without regard to who owns that intellectual property.
00:25:44.040 um open ai just had a huge settlement with a bunch of authors i think a billion and a half
00:25:49.440 they paid for stealing their books uh there are reasons to be worried if you care about privacy
00:25:55.120 the surveillance state one guy referred to the panopticon that's true here let me give you a
00:26:00.700 taste of the one guy you know he was a little bit radical and i think he was a man of the left
00:26:06.600 but it's tough not to take the side of a guy who's worried about privacy and the information
00:26:11.520 war against us. Take a quick look. I've been a voice actor and a different entertainer for
00:26:16.380 different types of projects. My voice was stolen by AI. That's emphasized. My likeness stolen.
00:26:24.520 And here's another thing is that these companies have massive social media networks that scrape
00:26:32.040 data. That is how these language learning models work. Generative AI works. They steal art. They
00:26:38.920 steal people's imagery they steal people's information they synthesize it they amalgamate
00:26:44.580 it i know rebel news i know you guys well enough i know that you appeal to the right wing so i'm
00:26:50.420 just going to say something that unifies everyone oh that's a good idea because i'm not here to be
00:26:55.280 partisan believe it or not i'm here to present an issue that's simple okay is that everyone
00:27:02.280 needs to breathe everyone needs to pay energy bills and everyone has information sovereignty
00:27:08.340 the more that that is distorted the more that is controlled by different forces outside of your
00:27:13.620 control the worse it gets and whether you're right wing or left wing that is an issue that
00:27:19.920 presents to all of us i'll leave it at that sir can i ask you this though some would say
00:27:25.060 that ai is here whether you like it or not and the question is is it chinese developed ai
00:27:31.040 chinese managed ai or american western european canadian ai so to put the genie back in the
00:27:37.840 bottle is impossible they were talking about the inevitable crawl of automation and labor and ai
00:27:43.040 and all that if you're looking at as an inevitability then look at it this way then
00:27:47.440 look at it this way regulation and people's responses is inevitable people's responses
00:27:54.560 to this technology just like any other technology is inevitable trains oil anything cars there's
00:28:02.860 legislation there's rules that people back because of safety problems because of health problems we
00:28:08.380 wear seat belts because people were being fun out of cars we stopped drunk driving because people
00:28:13.720 were swerving all over the road these were rules placed on the automotive industry the same will
00:28:19.220 happen to ai what brings you out today well mostly my daughter who's very concerned about ai she's
00:28:25.980 She's an author and did a challenge, AI versus author, sort of like John Henry driving steel.
00:28:34.540 But so she's worried about AI.
00:28:37.240 Does she think it should be stopped?
00:28:40.160 Well, let me ask you.
00:28:41.620 For doing things that it should not be doing, like appropriating authors' works or artists' works and so on, that's not a good thing.
00:28:51.360 AI is a powerful tool that can be used for very good things, but also for pretty bad things.
00:28:55.980 Well, Sheila, what I want to do now is we had so many little interactions and I'd like to show people, not all of them, because we've been talking nonstop for more than an hour to folks here, but just a sample of some of the things we heard.
00:29:09.180 Stop that slop! Stop that slop! Stop that slop! Stop that slop!
00:29:15.160 Even though the mayor of the county of Sturgeon said there was consultation,
00:29:20.260 if you have zero people show up, you probably didn't advertise it well enough.
00:29:24.780 So there's due diligence on the part of all politicians.
00:29:27.340 Danielle Smith is saying the residents of Sturgeon agreed to this.
00:29:32.000 I'm a resident of Sturgeon.
00:29:33.480 I have always been a resident of Sturgeon for many years.
00:29:36.980 My husband owns farmland, and no one approached us.
00:29:40.120 There's nothing in our mailbox.
00:29:41.460 There's nothing online.
00:29:43.580 There was nothing advertised.
00:29:45.160 It was just the only time we heard anything was when it was agreed to.
00:29:48.480 We never agreed to this.
00:29:49.840 What about the environmental consequences?
00:29:51.660 Should we forget about those, even though we're in a race with China, as you put it?
00:29:55.960 What about the resource uses?
00:29:58.340 It turns out that, yes, they'll build a power plant to power,
00:30:01.180 but not until a couple of years after it's open.
00:30:03.440 That's 900-plus megawatts that we'll be using off the grid, which could affect us.
00:30:07.540 But worst of all is the process.
00:30:10.340 Not many people heard about it, and this is just one project.
00:30:14.060 You know that the water usage is being understated and it doesn't seem like a
00:30:19.460 coincidence that the province cut funding for the Alberta Water Council
00:30:23.180 earlier this year. Like me you know they're planning to build the green
00:30:29.720 light gas power plant to run this data center which will have an impact on
00:30:33.500 local air quality when we're already struggling with devastating wildfire
00:30:37.300 smoke every year. I'm worried about the environmental impact, I'm worried about
00:30:41.300 historically what I have seen in the United States with the increase in
00:30:45.740 electrical consumption, the poor management of data centers, and the cost
00:30:50.760 that comes back to the people in the areas. And I know it's in the county and
00:30:54.740 a lot of data centers in the states are in larger urban areas, but the reality is
00:31:01.420 is that the due diligence hasn't been done in terms of all of the
00:31:05.600 environmental impacts. The only safeguard against tyranny is the free flow of information.
00:31:13.680 Beware of he who wishes to deny you information, for in their heart, they dream themselves your
00:31:21.240 master. Thank you, everyone. Oppose this AI data centers. Oppose this information war.
00:31:30.580 Stay strong in solidarity.
00:31:33.000 If this land were a field of canola, it would use more water than it's proposed to use as a data center.
00:31:41.060 So my point is, compared to what else was going to go there, this is a light touch.
00:31:45.960 Where would the water go when it's used to water the canola?
00:31:50.900 Would the canola pollute it?
00:31:52.840 Would it add strange chemicals to it?
00:31:54.720 I don't think so.
00:31:55.580 But the point is...
00:31:56.100 I'm not sure if that's what a data center does.
00:31:58.460 I agree that the oil industry has caused more pollution than this will.
00:32:02.180 However, the question is, if we're doing something new, should we say, oh, well, that's dirty, that's okay, so we don't have to do anything better now.
00:32:10.680 The question is, can we do better now?
00:32:12.840 We are polluting this planet harder than we ever have before.
00:32:17.180 If you were to figure out the per capita emissions, Albertans are the worst polluters on the earth.
00:32:22.940 Is this just a reboot for the climate movement with a new news peg in the form of data centers?
00:32:28.920 Like I heard a lot of stuff that I've heard for 20 years, just general anti-industry, anti-oil, anti-carbon stuff.
00:32:35.560 What's different?
00:32:37.560 I would say that this, I mean, I personally am hoping to sort of push it beyond that because I know that the historic environmentalist movement has been very anti-industry.
00:32:47.540 been anti it's like the the green party i've seen them speak sometimes and they they will advocate
00:32:53.140 for the sort of abolition of resource extraction and stuff like that which just isn't feasible
00:32:57.540 right we are here because 30 minutes that way a development is coming over which we can only
00:33:03.700 speculate the ramifications although we've been elucidated with some real figures we all share
00:33:10.180 similar concerns our planet is on fire because greenhouse gas emissions are out of control
00:33:19.700 municipalities everywhere in drought food supply chains in crisis energy bills for all of us are
00:33:26.500 poised to skyrocket all of this boils down to one thing we have no say we live in a very
00:33:33.860 technologically advanced society so things like data centers are necessary in some cases the
00:33:39.940 The question is, where they're being built, who's going to be running them, and what purpose they're actually going to be used for.
00:33:45.960 Whether or not we build AI here, will we be able to control AI in other countries or other continents?
00:33:51.740 Likely not.
00:33:53.160 And the question that some people oppose is, are we heading for a cliff?
00:33:58.080 This is a fossil fuel expenditure our planet just cannot afford.
00:34:01.380 And I know this is an economically complex statement to make in Alberta.
00:34:05.760 But if we want a livable future for ourselves, for our kids and for all living beings on Earth, it's a reality we have to grapple with.
00:34:12.760 The Canadian citizens aren't being consulted about anything that's happening anymore.
00:34:16.760 They're not even pretending that they give a shit what we think, you know, and there's people writing letters and stuff.
00:34:21.760 We don't need to be writing letters. Like we need to, we need to be doing illegal shit.
00:34:28.760 shit we need to uprise there needs to be like big moves big actions happening to like
00:34:35.140 actually like we need to remind the politicians that they work for us we are not sitting down
00:34:43.380 for this one we are not lying down for this one take your jackhammer and do something but it
00:34:52.600 sounded like you were talking about direct physical action yeah we need to be like tarring
00:34:57.480 and feathering these people do you mean that literally yeah no like we need to be we need to
00:35:03.180 like remind the politicians that they work for us if they don't work for us then like they're just
00:35:07.820 they're literally isn't that what elections are for if voting made a difference they wouldn't let
00:35:13.640 us do it are you talking again i don't want to put words in your mouth because because you you
00:35:18.960 didn't say it but i i'm trying to understand what you mean do you mean violence no i don't mean
00:35:23.500 violence but i mean like how do i describe it like civil disobedience yeah civil disobedience
00:35:31.720 like honestly like you know the idea if we stop paying our taxes if we stop going to work if we
00:35:36.620 stop cooperating okay that makes me feel more comfortable because i did see a toy guillotine
00:35:42.740 here which uh what do you think about that i think that's fucking hilarious if it's a joke i mean it's
00:35:47.980 symbolic then it's funny but you know there was the assassination of a ceo in new york a couple
00:35:54.760 years ago the accused is luigi mangioni and i think there's on the left there's this rising
00:36:01.200 idea that maybe assassinations work i wouldn't say assassinations i mean he definitely like it
00:36:06.600 was an extreme move but it's one of those like we're all thinking it and somebody finally snapped
00:36:12.740 we're not all thinking it okay well a lot of us are fed up a lot of us are fed up with a lot with
00:36:19.460 a lot of things and we believe in mother earth we believe in the the survival of our people
00:36:32.660 we were put on this earth to survive i think having open conversations is a huge thing like
00:36:38.980 Like, if we aren't willing to converse, we're not going to get anywhere.
00:36:41.620 Especially, like, people, you, me, everybody else here, like, we should be coming together because, you know, there's power in numbers.
00:36:48.300 You know, the small population of the people making these decisions are vastly outnumbered by, you know, ordinary citizens that actually want to live a life in a healthy country, you know?
00:37:04.200 I'm so glad I went in best foot forward.
00:37:06.800 You did. Well behaved.
00:37:08.300 Yeah, I mean, I didn't pick fights.
00:37:10.280 I could have asked tougher questions, but they would have changed the dynamic.
00:37:14.540 And I didn't want to be, I wanted to actually observe.
00:37:18.900 You were on your sincerest vest today, and they were trying to give you chocolate bars at the end.
00:37:23.980 Well, yeah, well, they just look at me, and that's an instinct people have.
00:37:26.580 Feed him.
00:37:27.540 Feed him.
00:37:28.580 But let me make a prediction here.
00:37:31.500 This is absolutely the issue of our age.
00:37:35.000 climate change the energy's gone out of it gaza well you know that's going to be a slow burn but
00:37:41.520 i i think that with israel out of gaza and i i just think the temperature on that issue's gone
00:37:47.760 down so this is the defining era i think for the populist left bernie sanders going full tilt aoc
00:37:55.620 kathy hochel the governor of new york announcing a moratorium nahid nenshi in alberta a few years
00:38:00.900 ago he would have held himself out as the innovation guy i'm the high-tech cool innovation
00:38:05.840 guy now he's the and like this is the unifying issue on the socialist left radical left populist
00:38:13.540 left across north america this was the realest protest i've been to i didn't see your typical
00:38:20.000 handlers um there were a couple ndps here but no politicians this issue ain't going the way
00:38:26.840 And my comments earlier about how McDonald's tried to rebut some of the propaganda, if the AI people don't start doing it and with different spokesmen, like there is something about the tech bros that they have a certain reputation already and a certain stylist and they've got egos.
00:38:44.220 And Mr. Wonderful, as he calls himself, a lot of the people who are behind the data centers have some PR, let's just say, they have some PR challenges.
00:38:55.400 And sending out billionaires to make the case is probably not going to do it.
00:39:00.000 There was even a Rebel News guy here today who was thrilled to see us here.
00:39:05.540 And he was also against AI and data centers.
00:39:08.700 I tried to get to the bottom, but here, take a look.
00:39:11.880 Well, I'm here to support anti-AI and data centers.
00:39:17.100 And as a matter of fact, I've been pushing hard, you know, online to stop or just to get stuff like this happening.
00:39:24.740 And would you call yourself a right winger or a conservative?
00:39:28.680 I'm a skeptic or a dissonant. I don't want to label you. Label yourself.
00:39:32.700 I'm a Rebel News fan and I stand behind Rebel News 110%.
00:39:38.700 Now, we have some worries about AI.
00:39:42.760 We don't understand it fully.
00:39:43.960 But one of the things that we came here today to investigate was, are these just anti-industry, anti-oil and gas climate activists?
00:39:54.220 Because it sounded a bit like they were grafting on the anti-data center stuff to just anti-energy, anti-development stuff.
00:40:04.160 Does that worry you?
00:40:06.340 I think everyone's really concerned.
00:40:08.700 this is very disturbing. We can see what's happening in the U.S. and it's, it's, it's
00:40:15.180 destruction of, of, you know, society and all the freedoms. So that's a real rebel. He hugged us.
00:40:23.600 He's, and believe me, I know what rebels are like. That's a rebel. And he is here with a bunch of
00:40:30.000 communists and climate extremists and leftists and NDPers because he's worried. And I, when I
00:40:38.580 pressed him a bit. He's just worried about AI, not so much this one data center. This feels a
00:40:44.320 lot like the space race all over again. It was, you know, freedom versus communism. And that's
00:40:50.840 what's going to happen with AI. You stop AI, at least in the Western world, and the communists
00:40:56.600 will win. And I don't think a lot of people see that parallel. You know, China is not going to
00:41:03.060 stop and China will do sinister things with AI they're already doing sinister things with AI
00:41:09.360 people are worried about control imagine if China wins this race I don't like Mark Zuckerberg
00:41:16.160 at all really I think he was a brutal censor it still is to a degree of us like Rebel News
00:41:24.620 paid a steep price because of Zuckerberg's censorship his historic statements about
00:41:30.500 privacy i think a lot of people remember when he basically said to hell with privacy so putting a
00:41:37.320 guy like that in charge of making the case for ai is probably not wise but what are the reasons
00:41:43.580 that we can be optimistic about it what are the reasons that we can have policy fixes instead of
00:41:50.380 trying to unplug the entire economy and shut it down and put the genie back in the bottle what
00:41:55.860 can we do to allay the fears? There were good people here today. That's the difference. I can't
00:42:01.580 look at anyone here that I spoke with and said they were malevolent or motivated, even the
00:42:07.040 communists. I said to the commie, what made you a commie? She said COVID. Well, I had a different
00:42:13.680 reaction myself, but I can see why someone would be detonated by what COVID did. So there's a lot
00:42:19.720 of work on this issue. And you can see why the NDP and the Democrats and the leftists, they are
00:42:24.840 all in on this because it's the only popular thing they have not that they have a solution
00:42:29.840 it's just they found something to demonize that lets them attack capitalism trillionaires
00:42:36.280 industry unify skeptics around a common cause that's exactly there was a mix of people here
00:42:42.900 for a whole number of things i saw a couple of capillas ai is what brings everyone together
00:42:47.480 and some of the speeches were incoherent that way it was like a laundry list of every fear
00:42:53.300 Manifesto style.
00:42:55.060 One of the speakers really felt like a Ted Kaczynski type guy.
00:42:58.380 I saw it.
00:42:58.920 I zoomed in on his notebook and it was, you know, the writing was four spaces wide, like four lines, and just scrawled.
00:43:08.940 And he was angry.
00:43:09.900 He was angry and spitting on the microphone.
00:43:13.160 Opposing AI is sort of like an inkblot test, a Rorschach test.
00:43:17.780 You look at it and you can always find yourself in that inkblot.
00:43:21.500 Do you care about privacy?
00:43:22.880 do you care about environmentalism do you care about sovereignty do you care about democracy
00:43:27.740 like everyone here i bet there are 200 people i bet they had 200 reasons to be here and ai is
00:43:32.880 malleable enough to give them each that motivation that climate no longer does gaza no longer does
00:43:39.640 and it does feed into anti-capitalism i tell you what i'm so glad i came here today i thought it
00:43:46.220 was going to be a nothing i remember driving up i texted you i said it's just going to be us and
00:43:50.180 Ben the organizer no it was us Ben the organizer and 200 people 200 people and you know there was
00:43:56.880 it was a cornucopia of humanity yeah there were people raging grannies there were raging grannies
00:44:04.540 they're raging dinosaurs um more masks than I've seen in Alberta in a long time but I share some
00:44:13.140 of the concerns of these people I just think the solution is to then build AI here very interesting
00:44:19.480 and I'm sure we'll continue on this subject for quite a while
00:44:24.240 because the other side is revved up, I'll tell you that.
00:44:27.800 Sheila, thanks very much for coming out here and for helping.
00:44:30.620 And I didn't even notice the trans flag on the driveway there.
00:44:36.100 Welcome to 2026, I guess.
00:44:38.060 In small town Alberta, take back your municipal town halls, people.
00:44:43.100 Oh, boy.
00:44:44.000 Well, listen, thanks to all of you for watching.
00:44:47.100 Thanks to Sheila for her support.
00:44:48.480 until next time on behalf of all of us at rebel to you at home good night and keep fighting for freedom