Vancouver councillor’s bid to regulate new AI data centres fails

New York has a moratorium on AI data centres—and a Vancouver city councillor wants to slow down construction on two such facilities downtown.

A Vancouver city councillor was hoping to establish a regulatory framework for AI data centres, but her attempt to do so failed as the ABC-majority voted against the proposal.

One City Coun. Lucy Maloney introduced the motion, titled “Addressing the Risks of Digital Infrastructure,” Wednesday.

Her motion sought to create criteria for councillors to use to assess each data centre, in an effort to address noise pollution, water usage, and potential job loss.

“It’s hard for people to justify something that may or may not have large impacts on water use and electricity use when people don’t feel like they have the right information, or enough information to know how that’s going to affect people,” she said.

Maloney’s motion stemmed from a joint announcement between the federal government and Telus in May, regarding plans for a large-scale AI data centre project in British Columbia.

Two of the centres are slated for Vancouver and will be located downtown and in Mount Pleasant.

The news has prompted public backlash and numerous protests.

At Wednesday’s meeting, about two dozen people spoke—all in support of the proposal.

Speakers cited environmental concerns, economic impacts, and a lack of safeguards.

One speaker stated, “I would recommend listening to the people, instead of your 11 AI assistants.”

The reference was in response to a past comment of Mayor Ken Sim’s where he claimed, “I have 11 AI agents running right now doing all my—like a lot of my work in the background, and it’s going to be 64 times better. And five months after that it’s going to be 128 times better.”

Sim later clarified that he is not using artificial intelligence to conduct municipal business.

Ultimately, the motion failed, with ABC Coun. Mike Klassen saying, “I think that for the time being, the city of Vancouver has a number of robust ways for us to make sure, of course, these kinds of decisions, ultimately come through public hearing, they come to council, they come to staff with a lot more rigour.”

He added, “by taking some of the measures that are outlined in (the) motion, we have the risk of creating unnecessary red tape.”

Telus, in a statement, said it understands the concerns and is “building these facilities with sustainability at the core of its design.”

Simon Enoch, a senior researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said tighter guardrails benefit everyone.

“For the industry itself, if it wants to continue to expand, it should be welcoming these sorts of rules, because without the rules, we’ve seen how quickly public opinion has turned against them,” he said.

Enoch said some U.S. states such as Virginia where data centres have proliferated, are now clamping down on the projects.

“They have already come to the conclusion that they’re not going to build any more of these facilities in residential neighborhoods, because there’s just too many impacts, and they can’t really mitigate them when you’re that close,” he said.

On Tuesday, New York imposed a one-year moratorium on new AI data centres due to concerns the facilities were contributing to rising power costs.