{"id":949827,"date":"2026-10-28T21:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T21:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/949827\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T21:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T21:12:09","slug":"n-s-premiers-office-scolds-professor-over-ai-data-centre-comments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/949827\/","title":{"rendered":"N.S. premier&#8217;s office scolds professor over AI data centre comments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The office of Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston has complained to a university professor in Toronto for weighing in with comments about a proposed artificial intelligence data centre.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">A staffer from Houston\u2019s office sent the complaint last week, emailing a copy of the message to a CBC News reporter and the chair of the professor\u2019s department.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The feedback came after Sibo Chen, an associate professor of communication at Toronto Metropolitan University, gave a media interview saying that public concerns about the data centre project over water usage and electricity rate hikes were valid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">William Burns, a communications adviser with the premier\u2019s office, said Chen\u2019s \u201cslanted comments\u201d were irresponsible and not backed by research on the local community.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Members of the public and opposition parties in the province have expressed concerns about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/atlantic\/nova-scotia\/article\/everwind-says-10b-ai-data-centre-proposal-largest-private-investment-in-ns-history\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.ctvnews.ca\/atlantic\/nova-scotia\/article\/everwind-says-10b-ai-data-centre-proposal-largest-private-investment-in-ns-history\/\">Everwind Fuels\u2019 proposed $10-billion data centre<\/a>, which would be leased to U.S. AI company Anthropic for 20 years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Chen shared a copy of the complaint with The Canadian Press, suggesting that it shows the government was trying to intimidate him.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Chen responded to Burns, explaining that his comments were about the general implications of data centre development and backed by peer-reviewed research.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Burns and the premier\u2019s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In his email to Chen, Burns said the government will not support a project that increases power rates to customers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He also highlighted another CBC interview, where Lois Landry, the warden of Richmond County explained that there are provisions in place to protect residents and limit the amount of water the data centre would draw.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cNova Scotians deserve facts, not speculation presented in a way that creates unnecessary anxiety,\u201d Burns\u2019 email said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Chen says the response from Burns suggests the government is sending the message that general citizens don\u2019t need to be concerned about the project. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Chen says he studies environmental controversy and his recent research has focused on AI data centres and their environmental impacts in Canada.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">He says he doesn\u2019t think the Nova Scotia government has provided enough information to the public about the proposed data centre and he understands why Nova Scotians are worried. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 28, 2026<\/p>\n<p>Related Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The office of Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston has complained to a university professor in Toronto for weighing&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":949828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,1930,276,277,6763,49,48,6768,35246,9544,324984,44,907,15004,714,66,715,61],"class_list":["post-949827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-anthropic","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-atlantic","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cape-breton","tag-centre","tag-data","tag-everwind","tag-news","tag-nova-scotia","tag-ns","tag-politics","tag-science","tag-social","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949827","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=949827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/949828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}