REGINA, Sask. — There were a lot of questions hurled at the government by the opposition on Monday over the investment in the Bell AI data centre project outside Regina.
In particular, the NDP raised concerns about the financial ties of two of the tenants at the facility, Cerebras and CoreWeave. According to a news release from the NDP that day, the companies have financial connections to U.S. President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr.
The companies' tenancy was announced in March in a Bell news release, which stated:
“Cerebras and CoreWeave are secured as the tenants for the new facility. Cerebras will provide AI Fabric customers access to its revolutionary wafer-scale technology, which will deliver large-scale, high-performance AI inference and training capacity. CoreWeave will deliver cutting-edge, scalable AI compute hosted on NVIDIA GPUs.”
The opposition pointed to a report in September that 1789 Capital, a venture firm in which Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, was added as an investor in Cerebras.
The NDP news release also pointed to financial disclosure reports filed with the White House showing that, in 2025 and 2026, President Trump had purchased what the opposition described as a substantial amount of bonds in CoreWeave. The NDP also pointed to the Trump administration having promoted CoreWeave as a key company in its massive AI expansion.
Opposition Leader Carla Beck raised concerns about the involvement of both Trump and Trump Jr. in the data centre project during Question Period.
“To the Premier: is he concerned at all that Donald Trump and his son have major holdings in a data centre just 15 minutes south of this building?”
Premier Scott Moe pointed out that a Canadian company called Cohere is “also going to be a significant partner in the data centre in Canada, right here in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, Mr. Speaker.”
“Being governed under Canadian law, ensuring that Canadians, Mr. Speaker, including those in Saskatchewan, will have data sovereignty for all of their online presence as I say, whether that’s sharing information with family, whether that’s industrial information, Mr. Speaker.”
He also dismissed the opposition, characterizing it as the ‘ChatNDP,’ in reference to the recent release of the NDP’s health-care document in which AI prompts were inadvertently included.
“We have many industries, as this is part of over $100 billion investment in our province. Or whether it be the opposition party, Mr. Speaker, the ‘ChatNDP’ putting together their health policy plan asking ChatGPT for what that should look like.”
NDP technology and AI critic Brittney Senger pressed the government further over President Trump's reported purchases of CoreWeave debt earlier that year and Trump Jr.'s partnership with 1789 Capital.
“The Trumps are backing these companies. The White House is backing these companies, all while saying Canada shouldn’t exist. What due diligence did this Premier do before he let two massive Trump-backed companies into Saskatchewan?”
In response, Crown Investments Corporation Minister Jeremy Harrison criticized the NDP.
“Well, Mr. Speaker, I would note that Bell Canada Enterprises is not a Trump-owned company. Mr. Speaker, this is a Canadian-owned company, an icon of the Canadian business establishment. Mr. Speaker, I believe over 140 years Bell Canada has been operating in Canada.
“But, Mr. Speaker, could there be anything more NDP than opposing the largest private sector investment in the history of Canada? Could there be anything more on brand for those members opposite, Mr. Speaker? And I’ll tell you why, Mr. Speaker. Because that party, at its absolute core, at the absolute core of the NDP, they are anti-investment, they are anti-development, and they are anti-jobs.”
“It seems there is nothing more Sask Party government than not understanding policy like the US CLOUD Act (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data Act),” shot back Senger.
Senger further asked, “How can the Premier claim that the Sherwood AI data centre is sovereign when he’s handing our information over to Donald Trump?” Harrison responded by pointing to “desperation from the members opposite.”
Harrison defends data centre project
Speaking to reporters later in the rotunda, Harrison pointed to Bell Canada ultimately being in charge of the project.
“Bell Canada is clearly not an American company,” said Harrison. “And Bell Canada obviously are running a business to which they have tenants, of which there are companies that encompass a broad array.”
Harrison also pointed to the federal announcement last week about the Canadian government taking an equity position in Cohere.
“I think that that is going to be a long-term positive for the country. And we have been talking to Bell about that as well, I would say. (Bell group president) John Watson actually referenced it when we made the announcement out at the data center about the AI data framework. He actually was referencing it even at that point, the work that had been done.
“So look, the NDP are going to say what they do, that's fine. They love to throw things out there. The reality is, though, this is a project that is significant for the country's AI and data sovereignty, a project that is the main proponent of which Bell Canada is a Canadian company, subject to Canadian laws and regulations. And that's what really is important.”
When pressed further about the Trump investments, Harrison responded that the “reality is these companies are subject to Canadian laws and regulations. That's a partnership between Bell and them.”
“I mean, the government is not involved in who Bell has as tenants in these projects. But I would say that we've been supportive of the investment in Cohere. I think that's a good long-term path.”
Harrison was also pressed about why the government's agreement with Bell has not been released to the media.
Harrison responded that they “don't release commercial relationships with private companies between Crowns. So, you know, the outlines of the MOU have been talked about in great detail.
“The partnership that we have with Bell and the relationships that exist there have been talked about transparently and openly.”
Speaking to reporters, Beck made it known she thought the notion that the Bell AI data centre project would promote data sovereignty had been thrown into question.
“I mean, you know, this is someone who has repeatedly… called on us to be the 51st state here in Canada,” Beck said.
“Of course it raises those concerns. We saw this when he decided it was a good idea to rename Lake Ontario…
“This raises all sorts of questions and again this is not the only questions we have about this hyperscale data center. This is stacked on all of the questions that we still had before they quadrupled the size of this project and have refused really to answer questions from the people of this province. This isn't going to help.”
Beck suggested that Premier Moe should “start answering some of the questions because they are not going to go away. They are going to become stronger and stronger and frankly people in this province have the right to know.”
Senger told reporters that having “US companies that Donald Trump and the Trump family are investing in, in Saskatchewan, on Saskatchewan soil frankly should be terrifying. This project should not go through.”
“It should not have been even proposed until the Minister was aware of these details. This is a threat to our sovereignty, and the Minister is claiming that he's not aware of this structure. I mean frankly, as Carla said, this is insulting. This is insulting to the people of Saskatchewan. They deserve better.”
In a statement, Bell Canada said it does not “comment on the shareholder makeup of our publicly traded partner companies.”
The company reiterated that Bell AI Fabric's data centre campus in the RM of Sherwood “represents a significant investment in the province's AI future, with total capital investment greater than $50 billion.”
“When complete, it will be the largest AI data centre campus in the country, with several compute partners significantly increasing the amount of AI compute available in Canada. A significant part of this capacity will be reserved for isolated sovereign AI use cases, helping Canadian governments and businesses access the AI compute they need for sensitive workloads.”
