Green Party calls for province-wide halt on AI data centres until safeguards are in place

By Anushka Yadav, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer A week after Mississauga became the first Ontario municipality to pause new data centre developments for one year, Green Party leader Mike Schreiner called for a province-wide moratorium until proper studies could be completed on the technology’s impact on the environment, energy and human health. AI data centres sprouting across Canada may have ignited a fear of an increasingly unpredictable future, but they have also exposed a deep crevasse in the provincial and municipal planning frameworks established long before artificial intelligence and its unprecedented demands on water, energy and public infrastructure due to hyperscale computing. “Right now, municipalities are on their own, trying to protect their communities,” Schreiner said at a press conference on August 6 at Queen’s Park. “The Ford…

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