Peaceful Wolverine Over several mornings in the last week of June 2026, residents at a Moose Jaw dog park spoke about what was on their minds: the city’s taxes and roads, a proposed AI data centre, and what it is like to settle in a small prairie city from the other side of the world. Three of those conversations are summarized below.
Elaine, 69, a lifelong resident
Elaine has lived in the Moose Jaw area almost her entire life, growing up on a farm near Crestwynd and staying on through the years she once spent, like many teenagers, wanting to be anywhere else. She is retired and widowed — her husband died in 2022 — with two adult children in the city, one a stay-at-home parent and the other a simulator technician at 15 Wing Moose Jaw. Mornings at the dog park with her dog Dipsy are, she said, much of her routine now.
Asked what was on her mind for the city, she named taxes first, and the question of what residents get back for them. She pointed to the proposed AI data centre at the former Valley View Centre, which has drawn local opposition, including rallies, as another live concern. The cost of living came up too, though she noted that pressure is hardly unique to Moose Jaw.
Roads she called secondary — not because they are in good shape, but because she sees their condition as the result of decades of deferred maintenance. Keeping taxes low was a priority for an earlier generation, her own father among them, she said, and sewer lines and similar infrastructure went unattended as a consequence. Her sense now is that the city could manage its spending more coherently: “Quite possibly one hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing, and therefore it’s costing us more money.”
Two newcomers from Korea
Two recent arrivals from South Korea offered a newcomer’s view. Leah, who immigrated with her whole family about three years ago, said she loves the city but misses the landscape of home: “There’s nothing here. No mountains, and no lakes.” Korea, she said, is busy in a way Moose Jaw is not.
Rogan had been in the city only about three months. He described it as peaceful and quiet, and was broadly positive about the local government’s work on roads and repairs, though he felt the city could do more. He mentioned visiting Wakamow Valley one evening and finding the lights out, and rough patches on city streets he thought should be addressed.
His main worry was work. There are fewer job opportunities in Moose Jaw, he said, than in Regina or a larger city, and he expected he might one day have to move to find work — even though, he repeated, he loves it here. He said he had first heard about Moose Jaw through Facebook and Instagram, where other Koreans, he said, are interested in moving, and he had a message for them: “You can move here, you can live here, you can work here. … Come to Moose Jaw.”
A longtime resident, speaking anonymously
A third resident, who has lived in Moose Jaw for decades and asked not to be named, kept his concerns close to the ground. For the dog park, he said, the city needs only to do the basics — cut the grass, level the ground, and keep the puddles down on what is, after all, a floodplain. Beyond the park, he wanted attention paid to the roads “from city limit to city limit.”
He also raised vacant buildings and houses he said were being squatted in, and said that if the city could repossess and demolish those buildings, it might help to clear out what he called the “riffraff.” Over the decades he has been here, he said, he has watched the place slide — in his view, it has just been going downhill.
Two data centres, one grid
Two large AI data-centre projects are now before Saskatchewan, at very different stages.
In Moose Jaw, the former Valley View Centre site is the subject of a proposal from a developer that began as Carpere Valley Development Corporation and now operates as Aztec. The plan, announced in June 2025, describes an “AI wellness town” combining a data centre with health-care and greenhouse uses, at a cost of about $485 million and with power needs the company has put as high as 150 megawatts. The developer has said it intends to self-finance the project. A revised concept plan adding the data centre went to the city’s executive committee on June 9, 2026, and was referred back to administration for more information; a resident has since launched a petition asking the city to pause it. Asked whether it could supply the site, SaskPower said it could not comment on the specific project.
Near Regina, in the RM of Sherwood, Bell Canada announced in March 2026 a 300-megawatt data centre, part of its “AI Fabric” program, in partnership with the provincial government and George Gordon First Nation. Bell put its own investment at $1.7 billion, with the total value, including computing hardware, at roughly $12 billion. SaskPower said it would build 300 megawatts of dedicated interconnection capacity in two phases through 2027, and the company named contracted tenants. Construction was slated to begin in 2026, with operations targeted for late 2027. It’s worth noting that the province has indicated it will refurbish coal plants for further operation to meet rising demand.
Both projects would draw on a provincial grid with roughly 5,900 megawatts of installed generating capacity. One has a confirmed power commitment and named partners; the other is at the concept stage, with its power supply and financing not yet settled.
These conversations were recorded at a Moose Jaw dog park in late June 2026 and edited for length and clarity. One resident spoke on condition of anonymity.