Making Sense.

While Telus builds AI data centres in BC, construction is underway on a $1.7-billion, 300-megawatt AI data centre outside Regina, Bell's largest AI investment yet. Around the data centres, Bell has also assembled a coalition it calls the Canadian Sovereign AI Alliance. Among its members, Cohere supplies the foundation models, Coveo layers in search and generative AI for government services, and BUZZ HPC operates the GPU clusters, all running on Bell's own infrastructure. It's a different kind of coalition than the one in last issue's feature (where Scotiabank, Sun Life, and Telus pooled resources to build shared AI governance), but continues the pattern of Canadian companies choosing to build AI together.

Canadian corporate bond issuance is having a record year, with many tech firms borrowing to fund exactly this kind of AI infrastructure. Infrastructure providers are now explicitly selling “Canadian-owned” as a feature, and that pitch is only going to get louder as more of these deals close. That's good news for a market that's historically been short on tech exposure, but analysts are starting to flag it as a concentration risk if the AI capital cycle turns.

Canada's AI Minister, Evan Solomon, opened a public consultation on July 23 asking Canadians, businesses, researchers, and Indigenous groups to weigh in on AI transparency rules. It's open until September 23, and it's the second time this year the federal government has gone to the public for input, following the consultation that shaped the national AI for All strategy released in June. The survey focuses on five areas: detecting AI-generated content, letting people know when they're talking to a system rather than a person, making information about how AI systems are developed and how they work easier to understand, tracking serious AI-related incidents, and monitoring what autonomous AI agents are actually doing.

Critics of the AI for All strategy released in June claim it was heavy on ambition and light on the actual privacy and safety detail needed to enforce it. This consultation will help shape the definition of “meaningful transparency” in Canada, which is worth watching for any organization already deploying AI-generated content or customer-facing agents.

We've covered Vancouver's AI data-centre pushback in previous issues, and now it has reached another turning point. On July 21, City Council unanimously voted to reverse its own decision to send the Telus-Westbank rezoning application (for the Mount Pleasant site at 111 East 5th Ave.) to a public hearing. The official reason was volume: nearly 600 written submissions and almost 200 registered speakers couldn't be heard in the time available. But the vote also spared councillors running for re-election on October 17 from a communications blackout that would have barred them from discussing the proposal during the campaign. The application now goes back to staff review, with no further public consultation until after the election and a possible return to Council as late as Q1 2027.

On July 26, the group No AI Vancouver held its third demonstration since May, this time a stationary rally at the Art Gallery rather than a march. Organizer Guerric Haché was explicit about the rally's strategy, saying “We hope to demonstrate a concrete electoral risk to politicians who refuse to commit to pausing hyperscale data centre development.” Speakers at the event also included BC Green Party leader Emily Lowan, alongside two city council candidates. On the other side of the story, Telus maintains the three-site BC project would generate roughly $9 billion in provincial economic activity, run on 98% renewable BC Hydro power, and recover enough waste heat to warm about 150,000 homes.