"Never Going to Get Built": are the plans for Wonder Valley evaporating?
Opposition is growing, and the case for massive AI data centres is getting weaker - was 'Wonder Valley' always just a mirage?
āIām not at all concerned that this project will end up being a horrible thing because this project is never going to get built."
- Alberta NDP leader Naheed Nenshi, Feb. 14, 2025
Even back when it was announced in December, some observers couldn't help but wonder if Kevin O'Leary's 'Wonder Valley' was actually a serious project. The project would be nearly an order of magnitude larger than anything that's come before it, the promotional material seemed like it was slapped together in a rush, and the novelty of generative AI was already starting to wear thin.
Even still, it's important to take this sort of proposal at least somewhat seriously, and push back. Thankfully, that's been happening on several fronts.
Sturgeon Lake correctly demands substantive discussion
The most important and effective opposition has come from Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, whose Chief Sheldon Sunshine rightly questioned the complete lack of consultation from both Kevin O'Leary's team as well as Alberta's UCP government in a January letter to the Premier.
And quite frankly, it seems fair to describe the Province's response to Chief Sunshine as insulting. Even a one-hour in-person meeting, which was understood as what was being offered, feels like a token gesture, considering it's ostensibly meant to be a nation-to-nation discussion about a $70 billion mega-project. But to downgrade this to a half-hour Zoom call? I applaud Sturgeon Lake for cancelling the meeting.
"On its face, it seems that this meeting is being set up to provide a tick on the box so that the province can say they've fulfilled their duty to consult", wrote Chief Sunshine in a second letter on Feb 12, as reported by CBC Edmonton.
Of course, now the Alberta government is "working to coordinate an in-person meeting", according to CityNews Edmonton, in an update posted February 18.
Naheed Nenshi knows what's up
The Alberta NDP leader wasn't pulling any punches in a press conference on Feb 14th. In addition to declaring the project a non-starter, he noted that Premier Danielle Smith clearly over-promised what she could deliver to O'Leary, falsely claiming she could issue permits, in exchange "for a ticket to Mar-A-Lago".
Nenshi also pointed to the impact of DeepSeek, an AI model that can do the same things as the leading US models, but consumes a fraction of the energy. It'll be difficult for tech companies to justify spending hundreds of billions more on AI infrastructure if they still can't figure out how to turn a profit at a tenth of the cost.
O'Leary may have already pivoted to other things
It's confusing: Kevin O'Leary seems to have been his own worst enemy when it comes to rallying support for the Wonder Valley project. His TV appearances, where he claimed that Canadians are "very interested" in hearing about a proposal to form an "economic union" with the US - where we would give up control of our own currency, and with it our sovereignty - haven't gone over well in Canada. Neither did his trip to Mar-A-Lago, nor any of his other attempts to ingratiate himself to President Trump while throwing Canadian interests under the bus.
And while O'Leary might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, he might have a rationale for burning his bridges with Canadians. Ultimately, O'Leary is a spokesperson and and opportunist, not someone with a solid business plan. And the original Wonder Valley proposal, with its wildly ambitious scale, well, maybe it was always more of a negotiating tactic, a way to get some leverage elsewhere?
For example: maybe it was something he could show local and state governments in North Dakota and West Virginia - places where O'Leary has said he would like to build data centres - to make them scared they'll lose out on some kind of amazing, can't-miss opportunity to build enormous computational warehouses that will drain their rivers and energy grids.
And later on, when he was going on Fox News as a self-appointed emissary to Canada on behalf of Trump and his annexation ambitions, maybe O'Leary's primary goal was getting into Trump's good graces in the midst of the TikTok kerfuffle. O'Leary, you see, had been hired to promote something called "The People's Bid for TikTok", something that wasn't really a grassroots effort, but really a play by US billionaire Frank McCourt to take control of the social media app's US operations.
McCourt's 'Project Liberty', which is behind The People's Bid, runs a blockchain-based social media app called 'MeWe', which never really got off the ground. And unfortunately for both McCourt and O'Leary, neither did their TikTok offer.
Poor Kevin, he just can't seem to catch a break!
Danielle Smith and the UCP are drowning in scandals
Lastly, if the Alberta government had been thinking they could skirt treaty obligations and/or regulations in order to get projects like this built, you have to figure they aren't thinking that now, given the intense scrutiny over healthcare procurements that are looking worse every day. Tough for any other sketchy deals to fly under the radar once the public's trust has been so thoroughly broken.
Ultimately, it's impossible to know for sure if Kevin O'Leary was ever serious about Wonder Valley. And maybe he never really was. But as both O'Leary and the UCP have shown so clearly, you can't give these folks an inch.