NDP leader reacts to new AI data centre announcement

Canada’s NDP leader Avi Lewis issued the following statement:

"It’s time to build affordable homes, a national network of public grocery stores, electric buses and an east-west clean energy grid. Not massive corporate AI data centres unleashed without any democratic debate.

There's also no real data sovereignty in an AI ecosystem dominated by U.S. tech giants. Telus may be Canadian-owned, but it has already transferred 14 petabytes of Canadian data onto Google Cloud as part of its AI strategy.

This is a technology that will bring sweeping changes at a scale and speed never seen before. Canadians deserve real oversight and a robust regulatory framework before we rush ahead.



That’s why we’re calling for an immediate pause on the construction of any new AI data centres until strong federal guardrails are in place.

We can’t sit back and let Big Tech billionaires decide our future for us."