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The company that wants to build $8 billion worth of data centres in Point Tupper, N.S., says it’s offered to sign an agreement with the province to hold it to its promises.
Matthew Tinari, chief financial officer of EverWind Fuels, said Tuesday that a proposed memorandum of understanding would legally bind the company to protecting power rates and minimizing water use.
“All of the responsible development principals,” he told reporters following a government committee meeting in Halifax, which was dedicated to discussing EverWind’s data centre plans.
The agreement would contain the non-binding guidelines for data centres laid out by Ottawa and by Premier Tim Houston, Tinari added.
“This is a proposal that we made trying to anticipate community feedback to this announcement,” he said. “It’s not a final agreement by any stretch, and we’re working through it. ”
From left: EverWind’s vice-president of power, Brendan Chard; chief financial officer and chief strategy officer, Matthew Tinari; and director of engagement, Mark Stewart. The officials appeared before Nova Scotia’s standing committee on natural resources on Oct. 27, 2026. (Taryn Grant/CBC)
Tinari said the company floated the idea to government shortly before its announcement in Point Tupper. At that announcement on Oct. 16, EverWind shared for the first time the scale and timeline of the two-phase data centre project, and the intended purpose — to support artificial intelligence.
AI giant Anthropic later confirmed it had signed a 20-year lease for the first 95-megawatt building to power its chatbot, Claude.
The premier’s office said in a statement that it was “recently” made aware of the suggested MOU.
“Like we’ve said from the beginning, the proposal was the first step in this process. The next step for this proposal is for the proponent to undergo consultations with communities, which will help inform any future agreements.”
EverWind has scheduled community engagement sessions starting next week.
WATCH | How EverWind’s data centre plans came to light:
Why Nova Scotia’s AI data centre feels like a surprise reveal
Construction of Nova Scotia’s new AI data centre in Point Tupper is well underway, yet so many people were surprised to learn about it. The CBC’s Tom Murphy pieces together the timeline.
Opposition leaders said a memorandum of understanding would be a start, but they still want to see rules for data centres set in law.
“We have a long history of large industrial projects in Nova Scotia leaving us with, you know, decades of pollution, huge environmental implications, huge social implications, and they all came in here sounding really good,” said NDP Leader Claudia Chender.
“That is why we need proof, we need legislation and yes, ideally a signed contract that Nova Scotians can see.”
Interim Liberal Leader Iain Rankin said a contract would be the “very minimum.”
“I would want to see a full environmental assessment. We do these for activities — quarries and other things … that could have less impact to the environment, when you look at it from a totality perspective,” he said.
Lora MacEachern, deputy minister of environment and climate change, said this project does not automatically trigger an environmental assessment, but the province will have regulatory oversight in other ways.
“We’ll ensure the environment is protected in any decision that’s made,” she told reporters after Tuesday’s committee.
The company has applied for industrial approval for its on-site backup diesel generators. It also intends to transfer a piece of an earlier environmental assessment approval to the data centre. A transmission line and substation that were first pitched as part of a green hydrogen and ammonia facility could now be part of the data centre campus.
However, Nova Scotia’s Environment Act says the transfer of environmental assessments has to get ministerial approval. MacEachern said the company has not yet asked for such a transfer.
At Tuesday’s committee meeting, Stephen MacDonald, deputy minister of energy, said EverWind first came to his department about data centres in the first half of this year.
“We weren’t entirely sure how real that [was]… it’s very common for the department to be engaged or approached by companies, proponents in all kinds of developments to better understand the energy policy landscape,” MacDonald told committee members.
Tinari said the company was under strict confidentiality agreements with Anthropic that prevented it from talking publicly about the plans until the formal announcement earlier this month.
WATCH | EverWind proposes binding agreement with N.S. on data centre rules:
EverWind working on data centre MOU with Nova Scotia
The company wanting to build data centres in Point Tupper says it’s working on a memorandum of understanding with the province. The agreement commits that the project won’t drive up power rates, will protect water and won’t cost taxpayers money. The CBC’s Michael Gorman has the story.
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