Ottawa has laid out its blueprint and expectations for the building of data centers in Canada.
It comes as municipal governments and politicians grapple with public concerns about the infrastructure behind Artificial Intelligence technology.
It’s become a hot issue on both sides of the border as people grapple with the idea of tech companies planning to build huge multi-billion-dollar AI data centers.
“If we don’t build the infrastructure of the future here, we will have to buy it from somewhere else,” said Evan Solomon, Canada’s minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation. “If we don’t innovate here, we will rent that from someone else. And if we don’t make the rules here, we will have to follow someone else’s. And that’s why we’re building more capacity at home and that’s why we’re building responsibly.”
Solomon says it’s a matter of trust, and Ottawa’s new principles will help guide people and companies. He adds there are several expectations. They include creating lasting local benefits, not having Canadians shoulder the electricity costs, minimizing water use and environmental impacts, and being of strategic value to Canada.
Solomon says several big tech companies have signed on to this framework, including Amazon, Anthropic, Cohere, Hypertac, Meta, Microsoft and Open AI.
The Ontario government presented its framework last month.
“Today I’m announcing Ontario is launching a framework for our data center playbook,” declared Premier Doug Ford as he stated his government is on board with data center development. “To help the province attract the best data center investment that drives economic growth, while ensuring Canadians’ data remains right here in Canada. I keep emphasizing that folks. We want to have sovereign data. We don’t to rely on President Trump getting his paws all over it.”
Ford sees huge economic benefits for the province and maintains his government’s framework will bring in millions of dollars in new tax revenue while safeguarding people’s information.
“Our framework will make sure data centers cover the full costs of their electricity usage, encouraging projects to build their own power generation. So, no costs are passed on to the hardworking Ontario families,” he said.
But there has been some pushback, and that’s forced some municipalities in Ontario to debate the issue. The cities of Oakville and Mississauga have imposed a one-year moratorium on new data centers.
“You know this isn’t a battle against just one digital infrastructure center. It really is a question about when this fast-paced infrastructure comes this quickly without policies in place that causes to pause and look at it a little bit deeper,” said Mississauga Councilor Martin Reid. “It wasn’t a battle against one spot, it was about the whole process coming this quickly at us.”
Not all provinces are supporting the idea. In neighboring Manitoba, Premier Wab Kinew put the brakes on a huge data center planned near Winnipeg.
“The very limited economic benefits for this project do not outweigh the serious environmental concerns,” Kinew said.
The city council of Hamilton, Ontario rejected a one year pause on future proposals.
Across the border, there is a one-year pause in New York State on data center permits.
Recent polls in Canada showed public opinion almost equally divided in the issue. Pushback has delayed or even sidelined some projects.
Even though there are concerns about electricity usage, water consumption and environmental impacts, data centers also appear to tap in to people’s anxiety about Artificial Intellligence.
