The Making of an AI Data Centre Warrior

[Oscar]

The Making of an AI Data Centre Warrior

QUOTE: "Bek MacIntosh helped rally her Alberta town to kill a megaproject. The wider fight, she vows, is ‘just getting started.’"

Andrew Nikiforuk - September 7, 2026 - The Tyee - AUDIO

EXCERPT: "The first thing that Bek MacIntosh, a 42-year-old business owner and mother of three, wants Albertans to know is this: it is possible for a community to stop a $10-billion hyperscale data centre dead in its tracks.

Even when the local and provincial governments have different plans.

But the struggle will hijack your life for eight months, divide your town and build paradoxical alliances that will transform your community in startling ways.

“People are amazing,” says MacIntosh, the founder of Little Town Big Data, a grassroots advocacy group that offers support to communities opposing these massive projects.

The second thing to recognize is the fight will be relentless and overwhelming. Yet every community, says MacIntosh, possesses the three ingredients needed to defend their future: courage, conviction and clear communication in the face of overwhelming complexity and political power.

“They just have to find their voice.”

And the last thing MacIntosh wants to highlight before diving into the battle for Olds, something she and many others regard as a landmark event in Alberta politics, is that the AI data centre war isn’t over.

“We’re just getting started,” says MacIntosh. . . . . "

[ https://thetyee.ca/News/2026/09/07/Maki ... *|END:IF|* ]