The City of Nanaimo has put forward plans to build a Data Centre on the side of East Wellington road.

If this centre is built, it will consume between 55,000-70,000 litres of water… EVERY DAY. In the summertime, when Nanaimo goes thirsty because there are watering restrictions and such put in place, do we have extra water? Obviously not! And the City of Nanaimo has decided against its people and to waste 60,000 litres of water we could be using for good??? The indigenous reserves on Vancouver island already have next to no access to clean water, should we really be directing more to unwanted technology?

Not to mention the environmental damages it will cause. The wetlands surrounding the area will be significantly polluted and the ecosystem will collapse. The hundreds of people who live in this area have to deal with a huge, ugly cement block. Is that what Nanaimo stands for?

We don't have a genuine confirmation wether this data centre will hold units to power AI, but in an interview with Nanaimo Mayor Leanord Krog, he mentions how “data centres are part of the future, their part of AI” and that we are “going to have to get used to them.” These quotes lead me to believe that this WILL be an AI data centre, but again there is no specific confirmation OR denial yet. From the interview, Leonard Krog also seems quite unsure of why they are building this centre in the first place, and he has no idea how many jobs it will bring... If it is NOT an AI data centre, the same environmental and other impacts will still apply. If it IS an AI centre, we must be even more cautious, as AI is looking to take millions of jobs away, begining with people who take part in the arts, but is quickly expanding to take millions of other job positions, yes, including your job.

We must also understand how much money will go into this project, and how much better it could be spent. What good will this do for the PEOPLE of Nanaimo? Think how much better all this money could be spent, building homeless shelters, building hospitals, funding schools, but no. Huge data centre is what they choose. 

As a community, as Nanaimo, we are better than this. Help us with this push to stop the centre from being built. Let our mayor know what we want, and why we want it!

 
Let’s work together Nanaimo, and change the whole game.