Alberta
Court orders Whistle Stop Cafe to shut down

Thousands of business owners across Alberta are following the very public tilt between a Central Alberta restaurant and Alberta Health Services. Wednesday afternoon the owner of the Whistle Stop Cafe at Mirror was notified a judge has granted AHS’s emergency closure application. Although the Whistle Stop Cafe has been ordered to close, owner Chris Scott has shared on facebook page “We are open and awaiting police response.”
Like restaurants across Alberta, the Whistle Stop Cafe closed in mid December as ordered by the Provincial Government. The Cafe remained closed for 4 weeks but when the province announced an indefinite extension to the closure orders, Scott decided he could not afford to remain closed any longer. On January 21st the Cafe reopened with limited seating for social distancing, asking customers and staff to wear masks while moving about. Since defying the closure order the Whistle Stop has been visited by the RCMP and then by AHS.
Despite significant community support, Scott is now facing the very difficult choice to close or to fight for his right to make a living for himself and his staff members. This recent Facebook post offers a glimpse into the heart wrenching decisions being faced by many Albertans.
From the Facebook page of Whistle Stop Cafe, owner Chris Scott
As many of you know, AHS served me with court documents Monday to appear before the court. AHS has asked the Court of Queen’s Bench to order my dining room closed until an officer of Alberta health services rescinds the order. Now I have a serious decision to make. If I lose tomorrow, and an order is granted which it likely will be, do I accept the courts ruling, (legal or not,) and give the government complete control over my cafe, or do I stand on principle and openly defy that ruling and get arrested for contempt of court? I’m not a criminal. I have a family that needs me, a community that I wish to support, I like to travel. All of these would be impacted because I want to allow people to enjoy a meal sitting in a cozy cafe. I thought being a Canadian citizen meant something. I’m not a COVID denier and I haven’t once failed to ensure my staff and customers are safe. Alberta Health Services wants to force me to close tomorrow, using our justice system even though they are “allowing,” dine in service in 6 days!! (Maybe.)
What do I do?
Who’s with me?
What about all the other restaurants that are opening against the irresponsible rules? Will those owners be encouraged and remain open, with more following suit? Or will they be scared and discouraged over the infinite power of a government that doesn’t seem to listen to us?
As I sit here talking with lawyers and reporters I can hear the trucker salutes as they drive by on hwy 21. There are thousands of people who support what we’re doing here! Thousands of Albertans have spoken out against what AHS is doing to us and they’re not listening. This is a problem. I even reached out to Health Minister Tyler Shandro today with the hopes of speaking man to man about this with no response. The UCP wants us to think that they’re throwing us a bone by “allowing,” us to open on the 8th. The oppressors have some people convinced that giving them back some of their freedoms is some kind of a favor. Isn’t that ridiculous?
Premier Kenney may have slowed this thing down by announcing possible reopening on the 8th, but the problem still exists that we’re only ALLOWED to be open by our government. This fight is far from over.
-Chris”
Alberta
Temporary Alberta grid limit unlikely to dampen data centre investment, analyst says

From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Cody Ciona
‘Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests’
Billions of investment in new data centres is still expected in Alberta despite the province’s electric system operator placing a temporary limit on new large-load grid connections, said Carson Kearl, lead data centre analyst for Enverus Intelligence Research.
Kearl cited NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s estimate from earlier this year that building a one-gigawatt data centre costs between US$60 billion and US$80 billion.
That implies the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO)’s 1.2 gigawatt temporary limit would still allow for up to C$130 billion of investment.
“It’s got the potential to be extremely impactful to the Alberta power sector and economy,” Kearl said.
Importantly, data centre operators can potentially get around the temporary limit by ‘bringing their own power’ rather than drawing electricity from the existing grid.
In Alberta’s deregulated electricity market – the only one in Canada – large energy consumers like data centres can build the power supply they need by entering project agreements directly with electricity producers.
According to the AESO, there are 30 proposed data centre projects across the province.
The total requested power load for these projects is more than 16 gigawatts, roughly four gigawatts more than Alberta’s demand record in January 2024 during a severe cold snap.
For comparison, Edmonton’s load is around 1.4 gigawatts, the AESO said.
“Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests,” CEO Aaron Engen said in a statement.
“Because connecting all large loads seeking access would impair grid reliability, we established a limit that preserves system integrity while enabling timely data centre development in Alberta.”
As data centre projects come to the province, so do jobs and other economic benefits.
“You have all of the construction staff associated; electricians, engineers, plumbers, and HVAC people for all the cooling tech that are continuously working on a multi-year time horizon. In the construction phase there’s a lot of spend, and that is just generally good for the ecosystem,” said Kearl.
Investment in local power infrastructure also has long-term job implications for maintenance and upgrades, he said.
“Alberta is a really exciting place when it comes to building data centers,” said Beacon AI CEO Josh Schertzer on a recent ARC Energy Ideas podcast.
“It has really great access to natural gas, it does have some excess grid capacity that can be used in the short term, it’s got a great workforce, and it’s very business-friendly.”
The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.
Alberta
Alberta Next: Taxation

A new video from the Alberta Next panel looks at whether Alberta should stop relying on Ottawa to collect our provincial income taxes. Quebec already does it, and Alberta already collects corporate taxes directly. Doing the same for personal income taxes could mean better tax policy, thousands of new jobs, and less federal interference. But it would take time, cost money, and require building new systems from the ground up.
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