The Green Party of Nova Scotia is deeply disappointed at the recent announcement with plans to construct an AI Data Centre in Port Hawkesbury. The party is concerned that this project is moving ahead without meaningful consultation with the public, that the demands on our electricity grid are unsustainable, and that an AI data centre is out of step with the needs of everyday Nova Scotians. 

Once again Tim Houston’s PCs are moving forward with a major project that will affect the lives of Nova Scotians without meaningful consultation. Public engagement must provide residents with accessible information, adequate time to respond and a clear explanation of how their concerns can change the project or its conditions. In this case with the project being cited as “pre-construction” and being announced at a reportedly private event, Houston has made clear that he will continue to ignore the concerns of Nova Scotians. Says GPNS leader Anthony Edmonds, “As the leader of the Green Party, I do not choose to make meaningful public announcements at private events where unfavourable media coverage is banned.”

The PCs and Everwind claim that the energy for this project will come from Wind West, but the project timelines are not aligned. Nova Scotia’s peak grid demand was already forecast to increase by almost 300 megawatts over the next decade, and more than a gigawatt (1,000 megawatts) of coal generation is planned for retirement by 2030. There will not be much slack in our grid, as people are rapidly switching to electric transportation and heat pumps, which are a much more sustainable use of our limited existing electricity resources. Everwind is promising to power this project with new wind farms but also admits that it will come online before any new wind power is built to power it. GPNS leader Anthony Edmonds says, “AI or not, it’s simply irresponsible to rubberstamp the energy demand side of this project without the energy supply lined up. If Everwind is in such a hurry, why can’t they put a rush on building their wind farms too?” 

Anthropic itself is warning the world that advanced AI could create catastrophic or existential risks. Nova Scotia should take that warning seriously. We should not provide hundreds of megawatts of power and critical infrastructure to frontier AI systems without independent oversight, enforceable safeguards, public transparency, and a clear ability to intervene if the risks change. Economic development matters, but Nova Scotians should not be asked to host potentially transformative technology on the basis of promises alone. Promises of jobs and investment deserve scrutiny – how many lasting local jobs will this project create? What public funding or financial support, if any, will it receive? And how will we meaningfully enforce these promises? Nova Scotians should be allowed the opportunity to weigh these benefits against the project’s demands on electricity, water and public infrastructure. 

The Green Party of Nova Scotia is committed to not using generative AI in our projects or operations, as part of our commitments to the natural environment and with concerns to the effects of AI on human and environmental health.