About 150 people attended a protest calling for a provincial moratorium for data centres in New Brunswick.
The demonstration, organized by advocacy groups Save Lorneville and Resist Data Centres NB, took place in front of the legislative assembly on Thursday.
Protest organizer and Resist Data Centres NB member Sarah Nelson said the issue concerns everyone in the province.
“Our message is that we don’t want this anywhere — not just in our backyard, but in nobody’s backyard,” she said. “This isn’t something that should exist anywhere in this hyperscale way, exploiting communities.”
The group’s first protest took place in Saint John on May 9, and was opposing a proposed data centre near Spruce Lake, pitched by Texas-based company VoltaGrid LLC and Calgary-based Beacon AI Centres.
Nelson said the groups took to the streets again to ask the government for answers and to call for a provincial moratorium on data centres.
The data centre is the first proposed project for the industrial park’s expansion and, if given final approval, could be operational by 2028.
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The development would be built on a 120-hectare parcel of land within an expanded Spruce Lake Industrial Park. According to a recent environmental impact assessment (EIA) filed with the province, it would be the third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide in New Brunswick.
The centre would require 390 megawatts of energy, with 190 megawatts supplied by a gas plant to be built alongside the project. The remaining 200 megawatts would come from the province’s grid, according to EIA documents.
Nelson said the groups are concerned about the project’s environmental impact, particularly its energy requirements, which they believe will increase electricity rates for New Brunswickers.
New Brunswick’s grid “is already strained,” Nelson said. “For a lot of people, this is about their families, their finances and the environment.”
For Nelson, the scale of the project feels predatory for a small community like Lorneville.
She said the community would like more open dialogue with the province about the proposed development, adding that many of the conversations around it “have been shrouded in secrecy.”
“A lot of people feel like it was swept under the rug,” she said. “I think we would be hearing a different tune today, or Lorneville would be singing a different tune, if they had been consulted.”
The protest took place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Other groups, including representatives of the Wolastoqey Nation, Green Party Leader David Coon and Green Party Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton, also attended.
Grand Chief of the Wolastoq Grand Council Ron Tremblay spoke at the protest, alongside Coon and Mitton.
