OTTAWA — Twenty-three of the largest artificial intelligence, cloud and telecommunications companies building in Canada have signed on to a new federal framework that asks them not to shift data centre electricity costs onto other Canadians, but the document sets no binding definitions and imposes no penalties on operators that fall short.
Evan Solomon, the minister of artificial intelligence and digital innovation, announced Canada’s Responsible Data Centre Development Principles on Thursday, joined by Tim Tierney, president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. The federal news release describing the framework is dated Sept. 3.
The framework sets five expectations for data centre projects, according to the release from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada: that they create lasting local benefits, that they not shift electricity costs to Canadians, that they minimize water use and environmental impacts, that they be transparent about local impacts, and that they bring strategic value to Canada.
Solomon set out what each expectation is meant to cover at the announcement, the Canadian technology publication BetaKit reported. Local benefits can include jobs, skills training, research partnerships and access to compute, he said. On electricity, operators must pay for the costs they create, protect grid reliability and, where required, contribute to new supply. On water, priority should go to efficient projects such as those using closed-loop cooling or waste heat recovery. On transparency, Solomon said residents should receive independently verifiable information about noise, emissions, and power and water use.
The signatories listed by the department include Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and OVHcloud, alongside Canadian firms Bell Canada, TELUS, Cohere, eStruxture, Hypertec Group, QScale, ThinkOn, Micrologic, Denvr Dataworks, BUZZ High Performance Computing, Beacon Data Centers, Sovereign Digital Infrastructure and Urbacon Data Centre Solutions, as well as Cologix, Equinix and Prologis.
What the framework does not do is compel any of them. It contains no specific binding definitions and no penalties for operators that do not follow it, BetaKit reported. Asked at the announcement whether Ottawa would hold signatories to account, Solomon said the government’s intention was to develop a basic framework, and that provincial regulators can write rules with what he called more legislative teeth. He also said the principles are not a new federal review process and do not displace provincial or municipal authority over approvals, describing the framework instead as a tool local authorities can use.
That places the enforcement question with the provinces, two of which have already moved. Ontario and Alberta have each put forward measures intended to require data centre projects to bear the full cost of their electricity use, BetaKit reported.
The municipal angle is central to why the framework exists at all. Tierney said in the federal release that municipalities are increasingly being asked to review complex data centre proposals with significant local impacts, and that municipal leaders need clear and complete information to make informed decisions. He called the announcement an important first step and said the Federation of Canadian Municipalities welcomed industry’s commitment to work with local governments, while adding that municipalities need resources to protect local interests.
The buildout the framework is meant to smooth is not popular. Polling by the Angus Reid Institute released in June found more than two-thirds of Canadians oppose having data centres built near their homes. Solomon acknowledged at the announcement that the public has good questions about the buildout, particularly on how it benefits them and what it does to local resources, BetaKit reported.
Ottawa’s argument for building anyway is sovereignty. Canada relies significantly on infrastructure and services based outside the country for the compute, cloud and data storage that power AI, the department said, and building capacity domestically would give Canada greater resilience and choice. The principles advance the national AI strategy, AI for All, and the Canadian Sovereign AI Compute Strategy.
Two things the framework leaves open are likely to determine whether it changes anything. It does not define what counts as shifting an electricity cost onto other ratepayers, which is the commitment most directly tied to household bills. And it makes no commitment on what kind of energy will power the new capacity, at a time when Meta is planning what BetaKit has reported would be Canada’s largest data centre development, north of Edmonton.
