The Ontario government released its so-called “data centre playbook” on Thursday in an effort to provide a clear set of requirements to data companies looking to make the province their home.

This comes as multiple municipalities across the province move to pause data centre development, over environmental, zoning and noise concerns.

Ford: Ontarians are “misinformed” about data centres

In a news conference in Guelph, Ont., on Thursday, Premier Doug Ford said Ontarians are “misinformed” about the negative impacts of data centres.

“I think people need to learn a lot more about data centres,” he said. “You can’t say, ‘I don’t want it in my backyard,’ but we’re going to use all that power and all the information to run the community.”

NDP MPP Chris Glover is the opposition’s technology and innovation critic. He called Ontarians’ concerns about data centres legitimate.

“We all want jobs, we all want to protect our digital sovereignty, but we don’t want higher water and utility bills, we don’t want environmental destruction and we don’t want the loss of jobs,” Glover said.

“The government needs to develop a regulatory framework and provide transparency so we know what we’re getting.”

Ford justified the need for more data centres with concerns about digital sovereignty, saying, “We have two choices, we either do our own data centres and keep our own data sovereignty, or we let President Trump run us over like he has in other areas.”

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One expert who spoke with Global News says American companies have access to our data, no matter where the centre is located. Evan Light is an associate professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto.

“The reality is that a lot of internet infrastructure is not in Canada, and so we still have traffic transmitting through the United States,” Light said.

“Just because you have data centres in Canada doesn’t mean that your data only stays here.”

Glover agrees. “There are certainly ways of building data centres that protect our data, but anything that’s American-owned falls under the Patriot Act, which says they can access it without even letting us know.”

Ford said the new provincial playbook is designed to attract the best of the best projects, and that the businesses will not be receiving any kind of sweetheart deals to move operations to Ontario. “They’re going to go through a rigorous applications process, and the question is ,’What are the benefits that you’re bringing to the community?’ We’re not putting a penny into these, I want to see the benefits.”

Traditional big infrastructure projects tend to come with employment upside. After their construction, data centres are nearly self-operational. “Data centres create very few long-term jobs,” Light said. “They’re essentially gigantic construction sites for a long time, and then you have a handful of people operating the centre. They are places where the computers do the work and the humans are there to tweak things occasionally.”

In the absence of jobs, the Ford government spoke about prospective companies building parks or community centres as part of the deal to bring their data centre in the province.

The premier said the province will also be prioritizing proposals that work on a closed-loop system, meaning that the water within is recycled.

“I definitely think that’s a positive,” Light said. “Cooling systems in data centres have come a long way, and there’s been a lot of pressure on them to do this.”

Municipal anxieties

Over the last few months, AI data centres have become a flashpoint in municipal politics, with multiple different jurisdictions across the province taking different approaches to development.

Earlier this week, Oakville became the first Ontario city to vote for a pause on AI data centre development.

In July, Mississauga voted to draft an interim control bylaw to enact a one-year moratorium on data centre builds. That bylaw will come back around for another vote in September.

Other areas have already approved data centre development, with one of the country’s first hyperscale facilities in Vaughan nearing completion. Hamilton also voted down a motion for a pause.

Premier Ford was asked if he’d step in to strong-arm a hesitant municipality out of the way if a data centre deal was at stake.

“I’d sit down with the mayor and council and we’d consult with the community, but I’d rather go to a willing host,” Ford said.