Opposition urges N.S. Premier Tim Houston to debate AI data centre in legislature

HALIFAX — The leader of Nova Scotia’s official Opposition is calling on Premier Tim Houston to recall the legislature for an emergency debate about a proposed multi-billion dollar data centre in Cape Breton.

NDP Leader Claudia Chender wrote to Houston on Monday saying his government has embraced the development of artificial intelligence data centres without public input or establishing regulations.

“Data centres have a well-documented history of driving up power bills, consuming far too much fresh water and harming local communities,” Chender said in the letter.

EverWind Fuels announced Friday that U.S. AI company Anthropic has signed a 20-year lease for a $10-billion, 18,600-square metre facility in Point Tupper, N.S., that would draw 95 megawatts of electricity during its first phase. EverWind describes the project as the largest private investment in provincial history.

Chender said since Friday she’s heard from thousands of Nova Scotians who are angry and worried about the proposal.

“People are feeling like they’re being left in the dark, that this government isn’t being clear with them and isn’t telling the truth,” Chender said in an interview Monday.

As of Monday afternoon, a petition to stop the development of AI data centres in Nova Scotia on Change.org had 12,700 signatures. The online petition was created Friday.

Late last month, Houston said on social media that any AI data centre in Nova Scotia would have to meet or exceed the federal standards for responsible development. He said data centres must include closed-loop cooling and strict standards around water use, noise and emissions, deliver benefits to residents and a financial return.

He said they cannot increase power rates for Nova Scotians.

“Non-binding guidelines are not laws. This project needs to be regulated in the legislature, not on Facebook,” Chender said Monday.

The premier, who also serves as minister of energy, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

On Friday, when asked by reporters about whether his government was planning new legislation to establish rules for data centres, Houston pointed to existing environmental and industrial approval processes.

Thomas Arnason McNeil, a senior energy coordinator with the Halifax-based Ecology Action Centre, said it’s unclear how the Point Tupper data centre would impact Nova Scotia’s groundwater resources or the cost of electricity for ratepayers.

“The scale of this project is massive in terms of demand for energy, in terms of demand for fresh water that would be used to cool this facility. The key question for us is what will be done to protect ratepayers? What will be done to protect people who are reliant on well water and groundwater in the surrounding area?” Arnason McNeil said in an interview Monday.

EverWind said Friday it will cover the cost of all electricity infrastructure and it’s project will not increase power rates. It said the project would include a closed-loop cooling system using recycled water as well as an external cooling system that would require the use of additional water on very hot days without any wind.

Overall, the company estimated the system would use an average of 100,000 litres of water per day in the first phase and an average of 500,000 litres per day when the expansion is complete.

EverWind and Anthropic have signed on to the federal government’s responsible data centre principles and says they have agreed to meet provincial conditions as well.

A recent United Nations University report says the environmental footprint of data centres globally already rivals some of the world’s largest countries. The report also predicts their water and energy use and pollution will double in just four years as use of artificial intelligence grows.

Sean Mullin, a senior fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs, said the AI sector is expanding on a scale that society hasn’t seen since the introduction of railways or the Manhattan Project on nuclear weapons.

He said AI tools are going to be increasingly important in all aspects of work and economic activity, and Canada can’t afford to sit on the sidelines.

“It could be like a situation during the (COVID-19) pandemic where Canada didn’t have any domestic vaccine production,” he said in an interview Monday. “That’s a different type of sovereignty in a different domain. We had to go and build our own domestic production capabilities … You should at the very least roughly have as much compute (capacity) domestically as your economy is using.”

Mullin said Canada has the space, electricity and water resources to build AI computing capacity properly. He said navigating public opposition is going to depend a lot on how thoughtful and responsible the proponents are.

The smart ones, he said, will meet the community with facts, lay out the benefits and address their concerns. He said proponents who aren’t transparent and move too quickly trying to rush a project through are likely going to be met with backlash.

“If you’re trying to jam big data centres into urban areas and use non-renewable energy sources and you haven’t thought through the water issues, then I think people are rightly going to have concerns,” he said.

The Point Tupper project expects to create 2,000 construction jobs while building the data centre, with another 215 permanent positions created in the centre and its associated wind developments.

Mullin said data centres aren’t major job creators compared to something like an automotive plant, but proponents could set up in smaller municipalities where a couple hundred jobs are meaningful.

“If you’ve got the land, and they’re building new energy and you can deal with the water issues, having a couple hundred extra jobs and having those construction jobs, many municipalities may say ‘Hey, that’s worth it,’” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2026.

Lyndsay Armstrong and Devin Stevens, The Canadian Press