Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation is celebrating a court decision it views as a victory in its ongoing legal challenge against a proposed multi-billion-dollar artificial intelligence data centre in northern Alberta.
The Wonder Valley project is being advanced by O’Leary Digital, the group associated with Canadian millionaire and investor Kevin O’Leary.
The facility would be located in the Greenview Industrial Gateway, a heavy industrial site northwest of Edmonton and south of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation.
Sturgeon Lake argues that the provincial government had a duty to consult with Indigenous communities before granting a key water licence for the project. O’Leary Digital had applied to dismiss the judicial review.
On Thursday, a Court of King’s Bench judge ruled in favour of Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, finding that O’Leary Digital would not be sufficiently directly affected by a review of the provincial water licence.
The licence, issued by the Alberta government in April 2025 to the Municipal District of Greenview under the Water Act, authorizes the diversion of six million cubic metres of water annually from the nearby Smoky River.
The river is located near Treaty 8 reserve lands where Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation members exercise their traditional Treaty and Aboriginal rights, according to the court decision.
“Today’s decision means O’Leary’s group lost on every ground. This means that SLCN’s judicial review of the Water Act licence, including a challenge to Alberta’s failure to consult at all, will go ahead in December,” the First Nation said in a statement Thursday.
O’Leary Digital has not commented on the decision.
