Skipping a formal environmental impact assessment is not a procedural technicality — it removes the only mechanism that would require the project to document water consumption, grid interaction, and emissions at the facility level. Alberta's BYOP requirement protects ratepayers from subsidizing a data center's electricity draw, but it is not an environmental review. The two are not substitutes, and the provincial framework treats them as if they are. The official who signed off on that equivalence said plainly that he lacks the domain knowledge to evaluate what he approved .…