Saskatchewan has committed three Crown corporations and backstopped a $2.6-billion coal-refurbishment program partially launched to support Canada’s largest artificial intelligence (AI) data centre. However, it has no guarantee of getting an appropriate return. That is a problem — and without a framework for future megaprojects, the problem will only grow.
In March, BCE Inc. announced it will build a $1.7-billion AI facility near Regina, drawing 300 megawatts of power from the provincial grid. Bell CEO Mirko Bibic confirmed that power availability was the primary factor in choosing Saskatchewan and insists that no public funds will be used to build the AI data centre.
However, the provincial government is making a significant contribution. SaskPower is building the transmission lines, SaskTel is providing the fibre and SaskEnergy is developing a new high-pressure gas pipeline.
The $2.6-billion coal program — disclosed in SaskPower’s recent filing for a rate increase — is nearly three times the $900-million estimate from late 2025. SaskPower is seeking rate increases of nearly four per cent each in 2026 and 2027.
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Its application does not mention Bell’s AI data centre directly but says the proposed rate increases are needed in part to help pay for several capital investments, including refurbishing the province’s coal plants. Crown Investments Corporation Minister Jeremy Harrison credits the coal decision with enabling the Bell deal and says having Bell as a large new customer could help mitigate future power costs.
The investment is real. So is the question of what Saskatchewan secured in return.
Bell said in its announcement the facility is projected to generate economic value of up to $12 billion for the province over time, including short- and long-term job-creation, tax revenues and broader economic benefits.
It added that construction will support at least 800 jobs in the trades and engineering, with a minimum of 80 full-time roles once the facility is fully operational. Based on industry research, as many as 750 additional community jobs could result.
Construction is scheduled to begin this spring. The facility will come online in stages, with individual data halls entering service on a rolling basis. The first stage is expected to come online in the first half of 2027.
However, the terms of the deal disclosed so far to the public suggest the province did not get as good a deal as it could have. That is partly because it lacks a framework for such negotiations.
That framework needs six elements: scarcity-based pricing for power; binding private-sector commitments; enforceable data-sovereignty provisions; Indigenous equity participation; public disclosure of the terms of such deals; and ongoing legislative review.
The problems with the Bell deal
Start with the $12-billion figure. Bibic told BNN Bloomberg that projection combines Bell’s $1.7-billion investment with the roughly $10-billion value of computing hardware being installed by the new centre’s two main initial tenants, Cerebras Systems and CoreWeave, both American AI companies.
The hardware belongs to the tenants. If Cerebras and CoreWeave leave, the $12-billion value leaves with them — and no publicly disclosed term requires them to stay. In addition, the facility is branded the Saskatchewan Sovereign AI Campus. “Sovereign” should mean data stays under Canadian legal jurisdiction — beyond foreign subpoena or government access.
Bell says “a significant portion” of the facility’s power will be dedicated to sovereign AI computing hardware, ensuring that government agencies, researchers and enterprises can access top-tier AI power while guaranteeing their data remains within Canada, meeting strict chain-of-custody and residency requirements.
However, no public document defines how much capacity is reserved for Canadian users, how data flows will be tracked or what “sovereign” legally requires of Bell or its American tenants, who are subject to the U.S. CLOUD Act, which allows American law enforcement to compel U.S.-based technology companies to disclose data through the American legal process, regardless of whether the data is stored in the U.S. or abroad.
Without those definitions, it’s just a marketing label.
There is a better way
The coming potash mine by Australian miner BHP will also draw roughly 300 megawatts from the provincial power grid at full production.
Agreements for the company’s Jansen project include binding employment and procurement frameworks, a structured Indigenous partnership and a defined royalty regime. Saskatchewan got these binding terms from BHP because it held something BHP needed: power. The province should have done the same with Bell.
A key reason for the failure is that the Saskatchewan lacks a standing framework that applies the investment logic systematically. Six measures would close the gap.
Price power at its scarcity value
Saskatchewan sells electricity to large industrial users at a posted rate. That is reasonable when power is abundant. However, when companies line up for a limited amount of always-on, large-scale power that only a few provinces can supply, the posted rate leaves money on the table. British Columbia has begun running a competitive process in such cases, inviting megaproject companies to bid on rates. Saskatchewan should do the same.
Make private-sector commitments binding
The Jansen project provides the template: minimum employment levels the province can measure, procurement commitments with local-content targets, penalties for non-performance and industrial power rates that escalate as investment matures. These terms should apply by default to any commitment above a defined megawatt threshold where Crown infrastructure is essential.
Define data sovereignty in law, not marketing
The province should pass a standard specifying what this requires: a minimum share of capacity for Canadian users; an auditable record of data flows from entry to exit; continuity through tenant changes; and — given the CLOUD Act — a sovereign tier whose operator is outside U.S. corporate jurisdiction. Keeping data on Canadian soil is residency. Sovereignty means the operator answers only to Canadian law.
Require Indigenous equity participation
Other Canadian jurisdictions have negotiated such provisions in comparable infrastructure agreements. For example, Cedar LNG in British Columbia is 50.1 per cent owned by the Haisla Nation. Bell signed a memorandum with George Gordon First Nation on workforce development at the new Regina centre, which is useful but not an ownership stake. The public record shows no equity share, no measurable procurement target and no binding performance framework. These should be the default, not the exception.
Mandate public disclosure above a defined threshold
When a province or its Crown corporations enter into deals with a private company, the terms should be public. For the Bell deal, they are not. The industrial power rate and the capital cost of Crown infrastructure being deployed have not been disclosed to the legislature or to ratepayers. Nor have any performance guarantees or the full partnership terms been disclosed. A standing disclosure requirement would fix that.
Establish legislative scrutiny for deals of this scale
A standing committee review with access to full agreement terms would ensure future deals are evaluated against the framework before signing — not after the fact.
Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe calls the project historic, and indeed the alternative might have been no deal at all — a legitimate political constraint. But political urgency is precisely when a standing framework is most needed.
Saskatchewan held real leverage in this negotiation. It will hold it again.
Harrison told Pipeline Online that megaproject proponents have been “lining up” since the province announced its energy security strategy and supply plan last October because Saskatchewan can supply power other provinces cannot.
Demand for this kind of power — always-on, reliable, at scale — from the largest cloud providers, speciality AI firms and the data-centre developers that host them will only intensify as other jurisdictions exhaust capacity. The question is whether Saskatchewan meets that demand as the owner of a scarce resource or as a mere host.
The author has no financial interest in Bell, SaskTel, or any party to the deals discussed in this article. He holds no equity, contracts, or relationships with any stakeholder in the outcome.
