Undoing democracy for a data centre in Nova Scotia

On Friday, an event was held by EverWind Fuels to announce an $8-billion data centre set for construction in Point Tupper.

EverWind says its investment also includes $2-billion towards four of its on-going wind turbine projects in the province and the creation of over 2,000 jobs during construction and over 200 permanent positions.

The company also says it will pay for any electrical upgrades necessary for the project, which are likely considering it will use 420 megawatts by the end of its second phase. Nova Scotia’s power grid generates 3,000 megawatts in total. It is also estimated to use 500,000 litres of water per day for cooling at the end of its second phase.

Furthermore, it was announced the data centre will be leased to Anthropic, the American tech giant, for its Claude AI model.

What’s the problem?

This comes less than a month after premier Tim Houston shifted his stance on building data centres in Nova Scotia. While he was originally against the idea, he said in a Facebook post on Sept 23 that his opinion had changed due in part to federal interest and a new regulatory framework for data centres built in Canada. 

However, Houston has a long history with EverWind Fuels, and it just so happened that his announcement coincided with the private energy company stating they were exploring options around building a data centre on the land they own in Point Tupper.

EverWind had previously been approved for numerous wind energy projects across Nova Scotia. Furthermore, Houston has purposefully obscured his travel expenses in the past while meeting with EverWind CEO Trent Vichie in New York, according to reporting from the Halifax Examiner, and has also previously defended Vichie’s political contributions to U.S. president Donald Trump.

Houston’s changing tune around data centres was suspicious, but the undemocratic nature of this project has bubbled over the surface since the announcement has been made.

Firstly, there was no public consultation for a data centre in Point Tupper. It’s been noted that public consultations will occur after the announcement, but the project has already received its blessing from the federal government and provincial government, with MP Kody Blois and Premier Tim Houston both appearing at the event on Friday to speak positively of the project.

Public consultations should have been had in advance of the announcement. Nova Scotians deserve to have a say in how much water, how much electricity and how much pollution they are willing to put up with for the sake of a data centre in the province, especially considering the yearly rate increases from Nova Scotia Power and the water supply issues we tend to face during a drought, which the province has warned could happen more frequently.

Who is this helping?

Also of concern is the fact Nova Scotia is selling itself to aid an American business interest (Anthropic, but Vichie himself is an American citizen) at a time where we are in a trade war with the United States. Originally, Houston promoted the idea of a Nova Scotian data centre as one that would benefit the security of Canadians who weren’t trusting of their information being stored in data centres in the U.S. With the news of Anthropic leasing the data centre for Claude AI, it sounds less like our politicians care about data security, and more that they want to participate in a digital economy that is quickly making itself redundant.

The AI industry is one built on speculation: promises of growth to private investors in hopes of achieving some sort of gain. Companies all over the world are looking for a piece of the proverbial AI pie as interest continues to soar amongst those with too much money to spend. However, speculation is just that. The bubble has already started to pop, with several data centres in the U.S. delaying or halting construction. For more on this aspect, check out our last article on data centres.

There are also the concerns of the unethical use of AI: stealing words, images, sounds and video from the internet, the job losses that occur with its implementation, concerns of poor execution where it’s implemented (fraud detection, for example), as well as the prevalence of deep-fakes that have impacted the lives of women and children.

In his original Facebook post, Houston mentioned he would look for specific regulations that ensure the project doesn’t impact the lives of Nova Scotians in a negative way. However, none of this is codified into any sort of law or regulation, nor any contract that we know of. There are federal guiding principles, but as for provincial legislation, there was a bill tabled by the Nova Scotia Liberal Party that has yet to be addressed. Currently, it’s just the vague gestures of a premier permitting a data centre to be built without proper provincial standards in place.

Lastly, it is imperative to mention the exceptionally undemocratic treatment of two reporters from the Halifax Examiner who arrived at the event to cover the news of the data centre announcement only to be removed by security despite following the rules, according to the reporters themselves. The Examiner was not invited to the event, where other media were permitted to attend (neither was The Coast), but the outlet says its reporters passed security checks before later being kicked out, with one reporter physically accosted by EverWind’s security. 

If true, this is an attack on the freedom of the press. For more on that situation, read the Examiner’s open letter on the subject.

If the necessary consultations were done, if regulations were in place and if reporters weren’t being tossed out of announcement events, we would be having a different conversation: one where we focus more on the environmental impacts, the shallow use-cases for AI and how it is more of an economic scheme than an actual market.

Instead, we have to talk about how undemocratic this announcement feels.

Brendyn Creamer is a freelance reporter for The Coast.

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