Regina council orders report on AI data centre next door after seven-hour debate

Regina's city council voted five to four on Wednesday to direct its administration to produce a full report on the AI data centre project rising just outside the city — after more than seven hours of debate over whether the report is worth staff time at all. The project sits in the Rural Municipality of Sherwood, where the city has no jurisdiction, and all final approvals rest with the RM.

The split is a rare public fight over the basic arithmetic of the data centre gold rush: these facilities promise jobs and tax base while consuming power and water at industrial scale, and municipalities across North America compete to hand out concessions. Ward 10 Councillor Clark Bezo argued the city has "another substantial budget to look at" and that spending time on a project that doesn't directly serve residents is "not the best use of our time." Ward 5 Councillor Sarah Turnbull countered that the report is "really a report for the public" — an accounting of what has happened so far and where the decisions were made.

What has happened so far includes a waiver the city itself granted. Turnbull said that on the original project, the City of Regina waived its right to review a secondary concept plan without city council's knowledge. "It wasn't known by council when they passed that," she said, arguing the city must course-correct so something like a future power plant doesn't slip through unreviewed. "Just because something's happening 2.5 kilometers away from Regina doesn't mean it's not going to affect Regina."

Construction on the original data centre continues while the report is prepared. A further motion expected in coming weeks would restore the city's right to review secondary concept plans — a motion councillors expect to be hotly debated.