Province urged to look at data centres locations

That say will include urging the province to work with municipalities and regions in selecting suitable sites for data centres ahead of time. This would avoid wasting time and money in selecting sites that are inappropriate for such use – for example, productive farmland.

The provincial government has requested comment through the Environmental Registry of Ontario (ERO) regarding a proposed economic and strategic assessment framework for new data centres.

Jack Van Dorp, director of planning and development, presented a report on the county’s proposed comments, during the Sept. 3 council meeting. Following discussion, council approved an amended version.

Van Dorp noted the comments overall support the province’s three proposed assessment pillars for new data centres – economic development, digital sovereignty and community investment and public trust. The comments also responded to the province’s request for answers to questions on the need for guidance, data and tools to evaluate data centre proposals.

County Coun. Kenneth Craig (Kincardine) said his municipality is also sending the province comments on data centres, and asked if they could be sent together, stressing he wanted Kincardine’s comments to support the county’s position.

Van Dorp acknowledged the timeline for submitting comments was quite tight, but stated the county had provided a link in its staff report to Kincardine’s comments. He agreed that the comments are “quite highly aligned,” and said he’d be happy to note in the county report that Kincardine has also submitted comments.

Warden Luke Charbonneau noted the usual way to co-ordinate responses would be to copy the county’s report and forward it to the lower tiers, giving Kincardine the opportunity to pass a resolution in support. The county could do the same with Kincardine’s comments. “This would be the best way to show support for each other.”

Craig said that was Kincardine’s intent.

County Coun. Jay Kirkland asked if data centres fall under the same category as … battery storage projects.

Van Dorp said he would see these (data centres) as an energy consumer, while the issue to which Kirkland referred was energy generation.

County Coun. Steve Hammell (Arran-Elderslie) made reference to the statement that “local and regional municipalities have a limited capacity to research and understand the various risks and cost pressures,” saying his municipality went through a lot of time and effort with battery energy storage. It primarily falls upon the CAO and senior staff. “It takes a lot of time,” he said, “hundreds of hours, to fully understand and research, and go through the process.” He said his municipality’s comments would be “somewhat on cost recovery.”

He added, “Hopefully the province will understand just how much work it is. It’s an enormous amount of work.”

Hammell asked, “How can we get ahead of some of these projects?” He referred specifically to pinpointing proper locations for these projects, and avoid wasting time and money on looking at poor locations.

Van Dorp suggested expanding on the comment about the first pillar (municipalities lacking the resources) and encourage the province to work proactively with industry and municipalities to identify suitable locations for data centres.

The warden spoke of battery inappropriate storage sites that are selected by these companies. Had they discussed it with municipalities or conservation authorities beforehand, “they may have … not chosen those sites.”

Charbonneau said in his municipality (Saugeen Shores) there’s great concern about “taking productive farmland and turning it into a giant industrial site … there are already industrial sites in Bruce County that would be more suitable. These are things they should be talking about ahead of time.”

Said Charbonneau, “If this is nationally significant infrastructure and it needs to be done to protect our data sovereignty, they should be trying to avoid hangups that are definitely going to happen if they decide to take a large piece of productive farmland and pave it over – that’s not going to go anywhere. … Maybe they should be looking for easier paths forward.”

Craig agreed, saying municipalities should have a “key chair at the table.”

Charbonneau asked council to vote on the report, as amended. The vote carried.