Canada doesn’t have a data center opposition movement here despite many Canadian petitions against data centers.  

These include petitions across at least seven provinces, some with thousands of signatures.

While the U.S., U.K. and Australia/New Zealand all have their own movements.

 

 

A movement combines multiple petitions, making similar petitions easier to find. This makes sense for Canada, given the number of petitions against data centers, listed below.

*These petitions cover the country in general:

 

Stop Data Centres From Killing Canada

https://www.change.org/p/stop-data-centres-from-killing-canada

 

Stop the building of AI data centres in Canada.

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-building-of-ai-data-centres-in-canada

 

 

 

 

 

*Then other petitions include the following, listed by province, from west to east:

 

British Columbia:

Ban new AI data centers in BC pending safety regulations

https://www.change.org/p/ban-new-ai-data-centers-in-bc-pending-safety-regulations

 

Stop Nanaimo City from building AI data centres

(The most signed of these Canadian petitions I could find, with 48,000+ signatures and 1500+ comments!)

https://www.change.org/p/stop-nanaimo-city-from-building-ai-data-centres

 

STOP the Vancouver AI Data Centre from being built.

(3rd most signed, with 18,000+ signatures and 290+ comments)

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-vancouver-ai-data-centre-from-being-built

 

 

Alberta:

Say NO to Data Centres in Alberta

https://www.change.org/p/say-no-to-data-centres-in-alberta

 

Cease AI data centres in Alberta and beyond

https://www.change.org/p/cease-ai-data-centres-in-alberta-and-beyond

 

 

Saskatchewan:

Call for a Moratorium on Large-Scale Artificial Intelligence Data Centres in Saskatchewan

https://www.change.org/p/call-for-a-moratorium-on-large-scale-artificial-intelligence-data-centres-in-saskatchewan

 

Hold a referendum on Bell Media Data Centre project at GGFN [George Gordon First Nation]

https://www.change.org/p/hold-a-referendum-on-bell-media-data-centre-project-at-ggfn

 

 

Manitoba:

Stop the AI data centre from being constructed in Rosser, MB

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-ai-data-centre-from-being-constructed-in-rosser-mb

 

 

Ontario:

Stop the construction of an AI data center in Burlington, Ontario

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-construction-of-an-ai-data-center-in-burlington-ontario/

 

No data centre in Kincardine!

https://www.change.org/p/no-data-centre-in-kincardine

 

Oakville Data Centre: We want council to pass an Interim Control By-law (ICBL)

https://www.change.org/p/oakville-data-centre-we-want-council-to-pass-an-interim-control-by-law-icbl

 

Protest construction of data centers in Strathroy Ontario

https://www.change.org/p/protest-construction-of-data-centers-in-strathroy-ontario

 

Pause new AI data centre approvals [Vaughan, Ontario]

https://www.change.org/p/pause-new-ai-data-centre-approvals

 

Let’s put a Stop to the Islington and 401 Data center [Toronto]

https://www.change.org/p/let-s-put-a-stop-to-the-islington-and-401-data-center

 

 

New Brunswick:

Stop data centers invading New Brunswick

https://www.change.org/p/stop-data-centers-invading-new-brunswick

 

Stop the Lorneville AI Data Centre and Gas Plant 

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-lorneville-ai-data-centre-and-gas-plant

 

 

Nova Scotia:

Stop the AI Datacenter construction in Nova Scotia  

(2nd most signed petition, with 28,000+ signatures and 400+ comments)

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-ai-datacenter-construction-in-nova-scotia

 

Stop the development of data centres in Nova Scotia

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-development-of-data-centres-in-nova-scotia

 

Keep Nova Scotia free of data centers

https://www.change.org/p/keep-nova-scotia-free-of-data-centers

 

STOP the building of data centers in Nova Scotia, Canada!

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-building-of-data-centers-in-nova-scotia-canada

 

 

Atlantic provinces:

Maritimers against AI

https://www.change.org/p/maritimers-against-ai

 

 

 

 

 

*I must admit I don’t know a whole lot about Canada, besides the gorgeous mountain landscape photos, Canadians being experts at ice hockey, the stereotypes (mounties and maple syrup), those helpful Labrador guide dogs, and my publisher Tellwell being located there. Also I recently saw the documentary ‘Nuisance Bear’ about a rogue polar bear in Churchill, Manitoba:

https://www.sff.org.au/program/event/nuisance-bear/

 

 

So I understand Canada has beautiful scenery, mountains and wildlife which doesn’t need to be ruined by the pollution of land, water and sky from AI data centres. These noisy expensive monstrosities have high power, water and resources use, while they poison the natural environment.

 

 

And the AI data centres produce slop, hallucinations, scams and deepfakes - all based on mixing together stolen copyrighted work. For these reasons, many copyright infringement lawsuits have been launched against AI companies across the world, with 156 active cases in the United States at the time of writing.

While Canada itself has 14 copyright infringement cases, which is the second highest number worldwide of copyright lawsuits against AI companies. These involve several different courts across the nation: British Columbia (5 cases), Ontario (2 cases), Federal Court of Canada (3 cases), Quebec (4 cases).

Reference: Copyright Suits v. AI Companies

https://chatgptiseatingtheworld.com/aicopyrightcasetracker/

 

*For more information on copyright infringement and the society-wide harm which AI is causing, along with the huge number of campaigns and criticisms against Generative AI content produced in AI data centres, see my petition:

Demand tech companies release all copyright holders data used in training of Generative AI

https://www.change.org/p/demand-tech-companies-release-all-copyright-holders-data-used-in-training-of-generative-ai

 

 

 

*Or view the many petitions in the other data centre movements. These movements against data centres in the U.S., U.K. and Australia/New Zealand allow people to locate and sign similar petitions in their country:

 

 

                                                                                                                                                    Petitions             Supporters

'Fighting Data Center Development' (United States):                                            176                         1,381,000+

https://www.change.org/m/halting-data-center-development

 

'Opposition to Data Centres in the UK':                                                                        63                           259,000+

https://www.change.org/m/opposition-to-data-centres-in-the-uk

 

'Halt data centre development Australia/NZ':                                                             51                           155,000+

https://www.change.org/m/no-data-centres-in-australia-nz

 

 

 

 

*Although Canada doesn’t have quite as many petitions as these movements, there are enough to justify a similar data centre petition movement for Canada.

 

 

Center vs Centre?

(You will need to decide the important question of whether it should be spelled data ‘center’ (like the US) or data ‘centre’ (like the UK): Canadian petitions above are split 8 centers vs. 14 centres)

 

 

 

*The top image is ‘Canadian Rockies in the morning’ by Sergey Pesterev, 2017, taken in Banff National Park, Alberta, and a featured picture on Wikimedia Commons, available under Creative Commons licence CC BY-SA 4.0:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rockies_in_the_morning.jpg