reported <\/a>that the RM of Sherwood’s council that signed off on the rezoning was made up mostly of members appointed by the province, and that the public hearing clearing the way took less than an hour. <\/p>\nIn April, CBC reported nearly 200 people rallied outside the Saskatchewan legislature against the project.<\/p>\n
Mairin Loewen, an associate program director with the Urban Climate Leadership and a former Saskatoon city councillor, says billions of dollars are being invested in the construction phase but she\u2019s worried about what might follow.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe devil is in the details,\u201d Loewen told CBC\u2019s Saskatoon Morning. \u201cWhen data centres are operational, their employment potential is quite variable.\u201d<\/p>\n
She mentioned the data centre that recently broke ground in Fox Creek, Alta. Once it\u2019s running, she said, it will employ about 30 people.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s maybe about the same number of full-time positions as a new chain restaurant \u2014 you know, an Earls or a Cactus Club,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
The trend, she added, is moving the wrong way: \u201cA lot of the AI-related automation of data centres is reducing their long-term job prospects.\u201d<\/p>\n
LISTEN | Should an AI data centre should be pursued in Saskatoon:<\/p>\n
Saskatoon Morning13:57Exploring whether an AI data centre should be pursued in Saskatoon<\/p>\n
Host Candice Lipski speaks with Jason Aebig, CEO of the Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce and Mairin Loewen with Associate Program Director at the Urban Climate Leadership Project.<\/p>\n
The other half of the worry, Loewen says , is what these buildings consume.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like stacking towers and towers of laptops,\u201d she said. \u201cThey get hot, so you have to cool those facilities. You can do that using energy, or you can do that using water.\u201d<\/p>\n
In drought-stricken parts of the U.S., water-based cooling has become a flashpoint, Loewen said.<\/p>\n
Canadian projects increasingly use closed-loop systems that require far less water but more energy, she said, and on the gas- and coal-heavy grids in Saskatchewan and Alberta that\u2019s not a clean trade.<\/p>\n
Loewen says it\u2019s still not clear who would pay for the new water main and natural gas pipeline the Regina project needs \u2014 the company or taxpayers.<\/p>\n
\u201cProtecting the public interest financially, I think, is important,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
There is opposition against the centres across the country:<\/p>\n
The planning tribunal in Hamilton, Ont., rejected an application after hundreds protested. Demonstrators marched in Vancouver over water and energy use. An online petition in Manitoba gathered more than 13,500 signatures, while Premier Wab Kinew killed a planned rural project, citing the threat to the environment and the community.<\/p>\n
Aebig says Saskatoon\u2019s AI reality might look a little different. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to be very realistic about all of the variables and considerations that go into that type of decision,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the absolute top of the list, of course, is power reliability and the capacity of the grid to support either a traditional data centre, I think, and that’s what we’re talking about for Saskatoon, versus some of the hyperscale ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunity benefit agreements should be a condition of public support,\u201d Aebig said. \u201cYou can\u2019t have a high-risk project that literally drains those resources for the benefit of everybody else.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a global capital race. We either need to position ourselves as being a solid and smart destination for this kind of investment or we risk being left behind.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Loewen urged the opposite tack \u2014 slowing the process down. <\/p>\n
Before the city lobbies for anything, she says, it should settle its rules for land use, water and energy, and identify who is responsible for the data centre’s clean-up when it reaches the end of its life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not impossible to build a data centre that is sustainable and responsible,\u201d Loewen said. \u201cWe\u2019re not seeing a lot of those because we don\u2019t have regulations that require them.\u201d<\/p>\n
With files from Sarah Petz, Alexander Quon and Colleen Silverthorn. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An AI data centre can cost more than $1 billion to build, and draw as much electricity as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[45,49,48],"class_list":["post-738930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Rows](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1781554031_843_default.jpg\")
The Greater Saskatoon Chamber of Commerce wants to see the region embrace AI data centres. It says Bell Canada’s $1.7-billion data centre under construction outside Regina would serve as a model. (Supplied by Microsoft Canada)Growing pushback\u00a0<\/p>\n