Humans of UAlberta: Ben Baril

Ben Baril was caught off guard by a post on Facebook about the $13 billion Meta artificial intelligence (AI) data centre being built in Sturgeon County.

Only a couple of weeks earlier, he had approached the county’s councillors that sit on the Sturgeon County Youth Advisory Committee with him to discuss where the county stood on AI data centre developments. Baril said they kept rescheduling the meeting, which is now set for September.

Having grown up in the municipality, the announcement hit close to home.

“It was just kind of a sense of betrayal that our local representatives would do something or would allow a project that is very well documented to be unpopular,” Baril said. 

Feeling frustrated, he connected with some people he knew from university and activism spaces and started trying to get folks from Sturgeon County to come together against the project.

In only two weeks, he and a few others were able to get a protest off the ground on August 2 in Morinville. About 100 to 150 people showed up, some in dinosaur costumes and many ready to rail against Meta’s plans.

“I’m just always running from place to place,” Baril says

Between his regular university studies, work, and fighting against AI data centres, Baril doesn’t have a lot of downtime. 

“I never have a moment alone,” he said. “The most time that I’ll spend idle is I’ll watch a TV show in the evening, an episode or two. But other than that, I’m just always running from place to place for work and school and just trying to get everything going at once.”

But with a data centre planned so close to home, the issue was hard to ignore.

“We’re a farming community largely, and there’s multiple people who do farm in the area around the data centre who will be negatively affected,” Baril explained. “They could see their livelihoods affected.”

He’s also concerned that the data centre will only make the cost-of-living worse as it puts more stress on the electricity grid.

Taking on this fight means going up against a trillion dollar company and local, provincial, and federal governments that are pushing AI development. But Baril said that while “obviously, it’s intimidating … the people we’re against are disingenuous and don’t have any real moral convictions, so they can be beaten.”

The path to turning the tide on the data centre fight likely lies in the next provincial election, Baril said. Replacing some of the Members of the Legislative Assembly that have supported AI data centres could create some change. 

That’s not the only option though. Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation recently won its battle against Kevin O’Leary’s Wonder Valley data centre. In Olds, the Alberta Utilities Commission quashed the natural gas plant for a data centre planned nearby. These recent wins on other municipalities have given Baril more hope.

Next up: tackling affordable housing

Baril is going into the second year of his business degree at the University of Alberta. In addition to that, he’s building a housing co-operative with some of his friends. 

“Edmonton has some of the most affordable housing in Canada, but it’s still unaffordable for pretty much everybody our age,” he said. “And especially in rural areas. They get underserved when it comes to affordable rental properties, and even just affordable housing in general.”

Baril’s seen how that manifests in the town of Legal, near where he grew up. He said the only housing development in progress has an entry point of about $60,000 for a plot of land, no house included. 

“We wanted to sort of … make a little bit of money for investors from the community, but then also bring these infrastructure projects to the rurals and to parts of Edmonton as well.”

He and his friends have already incorporated a co-operative for affordable housing. The next steps are getting a subscription agreement ready for community members who want to buy shares.

“Community members will buy shares in it and the money will be used to do for-profit developments, obviously, but more responsibly than current housing corporations,” Baril explained.