Canada wants to build data centres that are not just physically located here, but controlled here — a distinction experts say could determin
Canada wants to build data centres that are not just physically located here, but controlled here — a distinction experts say could determine whether the country can reduce its dependence on U.S. tech giants and keep Canadian data subject to Canadian rules.
But as Ottawa reviews more than 160 data-centre proposals to support the growing demands of artificial intelligence, the promise of "sovereign" infrastructure is already running into a harder question: how much control Canada can really have over data centres that may still rely on foreign hardware, foreign customers and digital networks that do not always respect national borders.
"This is probably going to be one of the single biggest tech issues that we are going to deal with as a country," said Ritesh Kotak, a Toronto-based lawyer and technology advisor.
hey, here's a link to look up your local MP's email to let them know that 1. we want to see the environmental assessment 2. no more data centres until regulatory law catches up.
If you want to write your politicians but don't know what to say, under the cut you'll find what I just sent to my MP and MLA, feel free to copy and rework it however you like:
Dear [your MP], [your MLA],
My name is [something] and I have been a resident of [city] for the past [x] years. I have seen the recent government announcements regarding AI data centres in British Columbia and I have serious concerns about the viability of these projects.
I am writing you both, as my MP and MLA respectively, to express these concerns in the hopes that you will push back against these plans as an obvious disaster in the making for BC and Canada.
AI data centres consume massive amounts of power and water, in addition to producing significant noise, heat, and air pollution. We are already living in a world where Vancouver has enacted its Stage 2 water restrictions - in May! Within the last year, BC Hydro has stated that the province will need an enormous increase in our power supply in the upcoming decade to account for rising demand - where on earth is that going to come from if these centres are getting 85% of their enormous power needs from BC Hydro?
Are we really so short-sighted that we intend to commit ourselves to projects that will consume disproportionate amounts of our precious natural resources, over and above the needs of the actual citizens who live, work, and importantly, pay taxes here? Where are the environmental and viability assessments for these centres? What is the regulatory scheme that will provide oversight and enforcement for these centres? Who is responsible for ensuring that they don't create a negative effect on the lives of your constituents?
As a [city] resident, I hope you will be pushing back against these plans and raising these concerns in your upcoming legislative sessions. Canada and BC should be investing our limited natural resources in sustainable, renewable projects that will benefit residents in the long term, not line the pockets of Telus executives in the short term.
hey, here's a link to look up your local MP's email to let them know that 1. we want to see the environmental assessment 2. no more data centres until regulatory law catches up.
Two new large-scale data centres are set to break ground in Vancouver this year.
May 13, 2026
Two new large-scale data centres are set to break ground in Vancouver this year.
There are 16 data centres already dotted around Vancouver, with a majority located in the downtown core and Mount Pleasant. They have various purposes, with some serving as colocation centers—where retail customers can rent equipment and bandwidth—and others purpose-built for AI.
The two new data centres coming to Vancouver, a joint project between telecommunications giant Telus and the federal government, are meant to improve and increase the scale of Canada’s sovereign AI infrastructure, Telus said Monday. The project was proposed under the federal government’s AI initiatives introduced in 2025 that support the development of these large-scale data centres.
These centres have been quietly popping up across Vancouver for a number of years, occupying hundreds of thousands of square feet in unassuming buildings. These tech towers have been storing cloud data and hosting website domains for over a decade in the city. Their existence is not necessarily benign, though.
...Many data centres use evaporative cooling methods to keep their computers at functioning temperatures. These cooling methods have become a primary critique of the massive centres, as they require the use of freshwater. According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, large data centres can use up to 19 million litres of water every day, and since nearly 80 per cent of that water evaporates, it can’t be reused.
Telus said these new centres will use a different method for cooling called a closed-loop cooling system that will reduce their water usage by up to 80 per cent.
Still, the amount of water needed for these AI data centres is a big concern among community members, especially given the state of B.C.’s water resources. On May 1, Vancouver activated Stage 2 water restrictions to help conserve drinking water in anticipation of a hot, dry summer with low snowpack.
“Metro Vancouver is running out of water. I’ve heard that they’re going to do their best, they’re going to try and use recycled water and it’s going to be a closed loop. But I still have concerns about how much water these are going to use,” Coun. Sean Orr said.
...In recent years, B.C. has seen an increase in extreme heat events throughout the summer months, with more on the horizon. The heat dome that came to the province in 2021 saw over 600 heat-related deaths, and even more adverse health effects, with temperatures in the Lower Mainland breaking previous temperature records by 5 degrees or more.
“Where does this fit into building a city that is actually working to protect disabled life, and life in general,” Gabrielle Peters, disabled writer and policy analyst said. A majority of the people who died during the 2021 heat dome also had pre-existing chronic conditions and limited mobility.
The federal government says that extreme heat is the leading cause of illness and death from weather-related hazards in Canada. Peters argued the city remains ill-prepared for serious heat events, and expressed concern about the impact the data centres could have on temperatures.
Sep 17, 2019 | “Recently, the Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre has been inundated with transphobic messages, comments, and negative reviews on Facebook and Twitter after we confirmed our trans-inclusive stance online in regards to a trans woman who accessed our shelter.
The Downtown Eastside Women’s Centre (DEWC) strives to provide a safe, secure non-judgmental refuge along with basic need and support services for any and all women [cisgender and transgender] in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Providing services to over 600 women each day, 7 days a week, DEWC supports a diverse population including Indigenous women, Chinese senior women, single mothers, women with disabilities, women with addictions, and women with mental and/or physical health conditions. What many women have in common is lack of adequate income, precarious housing situations, lack of access to heath supports, as well as experiencing high levels of violence and racism.
Creating and maintaining low-barrier safe space for all women accessing DEWC services is our priority, particularly for the women who survive with complex trauma, mental health, and/or addiction issues where they are often excluded from shelters and transition houses outside of the Downtown Eastside. It is important to note that trans women are especially marginalized, facing disproportionate abuse and harassment in both co-ed spaces and when accessing women’s services, and have even fewer safe spaces to go.
DEWC stands with all [cis and trans] women of the community continuing our work ensuring women have safe, accessible services and supports. We are committed to women’s safety and will continue to address internally any behavior that compromises the safety and security of women accessing DEWC services. Importantly, we refuse to engage in a dialogue that gives a platform to transphobic groups or individuals or otherwise does damage to women who are transgender.”
“Does your budget truly necessitate me giving up my life in order for you to achieve your financial goals? Was there truly no other way than at the expense of disabled lives, including my own?”
This is a hideous indictment, & to many in Canada, not news at all.
Quote Tweet Maclean’s Magazine
@macleans
Gabrielle Peters: Many disabled Canadians have been forced into poverty by insufficient income support—especially true during the pandemic. Some are considering MAID because they “simply cannot afford to keep on living.” (includes the link above)
Reply from Natalie Morrill
There is something utterly horrific in the system that asserts, in tones of compassion, “You wouldn’t be suffering this way if you didn’t exist.”
So much depends on whether our leaders & their constituents do or don’t listen to disabled people in this period in history.]
Here’s an addition from the author (@mssinenomine on Twitter):
Since some people have asked, this piece is indeed also intended to be directed at the premiers of provinces. There is plenty enough blame to go around. All levels of govt from coast to coast have failed disabled people.
The provincial govts have maintained way below the poverty line disability benefit rates.
The pandemic has worsened the situation so that barely survivable poverty has become less so.
The federal govt’s response to this was a one-time $600 payment available to fraction of ppl
For anyone wondering why even tho I and many disabled people support access to a dignified death, we rally for greater access to financial aid first and bring this up at every discussion of medically assisted deaths.
Starve or die is a literal reality with some euthanasia plans. Its most likely by design from ableist institutions who see our lives as tragedies and burdens. Pro euthanasia organisations regularly ignore and shut down dissent from disabled people who know the end goal of the lack of safety nets while end of life legislation is focused on.
They claim we are pitting one disabled group against another and that we are letting our own feelings and faith get in the way of ‘sensible legislation’ when they are the ones who scapegoat us when reforms fail and their sensible legislation leaves us nothing to live on.
We can have both robust social aid and end of life plans. We need both. But social safety nets are getting stripped with austerity while end of life plans are moving forward. Does anybody not get the hint?
This was during debate that resulted in his Safe Surrey Coalition defeating Councillor Jack Hundial’s motion to acknowledge that city meetin
Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum says the city doesn’t need to acknowledge that its council and committee meetings are being held on First Nations land before every meeting, while at the same time claiming “we treat them better in Surrey literally than anywhere.”
“I think we’re doing an excellent job currently and the First Nations are happy with what we’re doing,” McCallum said.
Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission return Chinook salmon to upper Columbia River:
Bringing salmon back to the Upper Columbia has been a goal since the habitat was blocked by the Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams more than eight decades ago. […] In a 2019 ceremony, Colville members released 30 salmon above Chief Joseph Dam and, a few days later, above Grand Coulee. It was the first time salmon had returned to their traditional waters. At the 2019 release above Chief Joseph Dam, tribal council member Norma Sanchez helped guide the fish into the water. “My grandma is probably up there just praying on us,” Sanchez said at the time.
[Headline and text published by: Courtney Flatt. “Salmon spawn in the upper Columbia after an 80-year hiatus.” Crosscut. 29 December 2020.]
——-
[Headline, image, caption published by: Komo News. “First time in decades, chinook salmon spawn in upper Columbia River.” 18 December 2020.]
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For the first time in more than a generation, chinook salmon have spawned in the upper Columbia River system.
Colville Tribal biologists counted 36 redds, a gravely nest where female salmon lay eggs, along an 8-mile (12-kilometer) stretch of the Sanpoil River, a tributary of the Columbia, in September, the Spokesman Review-Journal reported.
“I was shocked at first, then I was just overcome with complete joy,” said Crystal Conant, a Colville Tribal member from the Arrow Lakes and SanPoil bands. “I don’t know that I have the right words to even explain the happiness and the healing.”
The news is a step toward full reintroduction of the migratory fish and another watershed cultural moment for the region’s tribes. Since the Chief Joseph and Grand Coulee dams were built in the 1950s and 1930s, respectively, salmon have been blocked from returning to spawning beds in the upper Columbia River.
For decades, tribal leaders and scientists have dreamed of bringing the fish back to their native beds. Since 2014, the Columbia River tribes have worked on a plan that examines habitat, fish passage and survival among other things. […]
In 2019, about 60 salmon were released above the Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams in a cultural event. As a continuation of that project, tribal biologists released 100 fish 35 miles up the Sanpoil River in August to see how well they survived.
[Text by AP News, as republished by Lake County Star. “First time in years, chinook salmon spawn in Columbia River.” 18 December 2020.]
Dec 13, 2020 - The North Atlantic cod collapsed because the DFO ignored critical warnings from its own scientists,
[Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan, MP for South Shore—St. Margarets, Nova Scotia, will make a decision within the next week that will decide the fate of the Fraser River sockeye salmon.
Already in 2020, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has landed two cruel blows against this remarkable fish. Now the final decision in the trilogy hangs like an executioner’s guillotine over the fish and the future of the B.C. coast.
In 1997, one of Canada’s most prominent scientists, Jeff Hutchings of Dalhousie University, was the lead author in a paper that described the DFO decisions that led to the collapse of the North Atlantic cod.
“Government-administered science in Canada, and its potential for bureaucratic and political interference, merits examination in the wake of the biological and socioeconomic catastrophes associated with recent fishery collapses,” the researchers wrote.
There was no examination, inquiry or accountability. The late Dr Ransom Myers said it was simple: DFO was issuing quotas to capture cod before they were old enough to have spawned. Like eating into your investment capital Canadians were left with an empty ocean.
Standing in my speedboat in the Broughton Archipelago Myers told me what it was like to be the scientist that could have prevented the collapse: "When DFO told me not to tell the public why the cod were collapsing, it took me seven minutes to decide to resign. DFO is a criminal organization.”
Myers went on to a brilliant career as a fisheries scientist. Shortly after the last cod boat was tied up forever, the Hibernia Oil Wells went onto the Grand Banks now empty of the fish that fed so many.
...
[Photo ID: a young salmon infested with sea lice which are eating the fish]
...
On March 1, 2020 DFO Aquaculture issued the salmon farming industry permission to have an unlimited number of sea lice for six weeks every time they exceeded the long-standing lice limit set by the province of B.C. to protect wild salmon. Thirty-four percent of the salmon farms in B.C. were heavily infected with breeding lice this spring, including 50 percent of the farms in the Discovery Islands.
Ninety-nine percent of the young sockeye trying to reach the ocean were heavily infected as they swam through this region. DFO science informs us the damage to these sockeye salmon was “acute” and “profound”.
This decision sacrificed a generation of sockeye already on extinction watch to keep the salmon farming industry in compliance. In the Broughton Archipelago, where First Nations have asserted their right to remove several salmon farms per year, sea lice infections on the young wild salmon were the lowest observed in southern B.C. and most will likely survive the critical first leg of their journey.
...
On December 18, 2020, all 18 federal salmon farm licences in the Discovery Islands will expire. This triggered consultation conducted at breakneck speed with seven First Nations whose territories include this area.
Chief Wayne Sparrow of the Musqueam emphatically reminded DFO that his nation has proven rights to the Fraser sockeye and DFO must consult with him about all things impacting that those fish.
Further up the Fraser River, St’át’imc Chief Councillor Don Harris said the same thing and also called for the removal of salmon farms to prevent the extinction of the salmon his nation depends on for ceremony and nutrition.
One hundred and one First Nations coastwide, including also the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, the First Nation Summit, and the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, have signed a declaration circulated by Bob (Galagame’) Chamberlin, former Chief of the Kwikwasut'inuxw Haxwa'mis First Nation, demanding removal of the salmon farming industry from the ocean. Twenty-five elected members of Parliament have also declared their support for removing salmon farms from the ocean.]
the city of toronto has removed 2 tiny shelters. The first they removed on Dec 9th. We visited that shelter and I opened the door and saw someone’s name written inside on the wall and all of their things inside. City of Toronto staff have made statements saying there was no one staying in it.
They are spending taxpayer dollars to take shelters away from people who need them.
Please ask our @cityofto councillors why this is happening.
Below is a template letter created by Toronto Tiny Shelters (TTS). It outlines our key demands of the City of Toronto. Feel free to tailor it accordingly. We only ask that you retain the main points and keep your letter professional.
To find your City Councillor https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/council/members-of-council/
________________________________________________
Dear Mayor John Tory and <YOUR CITY COUNCILLOR >
My name is <INSERT NAME> and I am contacting you in regards to the intimidation and forceful removal of people currently residing in encampments on City land. Temporary shelters should be allowed to remain on public land until there is a viable solution from the City of Toronto which accounts for every individual’s needs and requirements.
The City must acknowledge that although it’s shelter system may meet the needs of some, it is not suitable for everyone. The impact of COVID-19 on shelter capacity has left many without a safe place to stay. Additionally, the current system limits the amount of possessions a person may bring with them, causing many to face losing the few essential items they have in exchange for a temporary shelter bed. Although I am sure City staff are working hard to make the shelter spaces safe, the undeniable reality is that many individuals do not currently perceive City shelters as an appropriately safe or risk-free option. The City must acknowledge and adapt to those with different needs, abilities and health conditions. The shelter system cannot be seen as a one size fits all model.
As COVID-19 continues to put pressure on all public services, we insist that the City allows those using temporary shelter structures to occupy City land, including public parks. Those living in encampments should not be intimidated or coerced into leaving encampments by City employees.
The City’s approach to encampments is a serious public health concern. The CDC recommends that cities DO NOT clear encampments during the COVID-19 pandemic: “Unless individual housing units are available, do not clear encampments during community spread of COVID-19. Clearing encampments can cause people to disperse throughout the community and break connections with service providers. This increases the potential for infectious disease spread.” (from the CDC website) This recommendation MUST be taken seriously.
As my elected official, I implore you to listen to this request. Those living in encampments are human beings and their rights should not be ignored. We welcome and encourage the City to continue to work towards a permanent solution that properly addresses the housing crisis our city faces; but people must not die in the meantime.
Please use your position to support me - a member of your constituency - in demanding the City allows temporary shelters to remain on City land this winter.
@EllenGabriel1 #Oka Golf Club has been sold by the Municipalité d’Oka when the Land shld have been reverted back to Kanehsatake- Now the original plan from 1990 to build Condominiums is scheduled to take place soon - Where is the respect for Indigenous Rights Now @JustinTrudeau @MarcMillerVM?!
turnnoffyourmind
dailybridgerton
gummygunk
romaincrisis
