Also: 300 show up in Bridgewater to protest against AI data centre

Lots of pictures of protest signs on both articles.

CBC has one article for the province, Protests across Nova Scotia oppose AI data centres, but it only has a couple of pictures.

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston's office has criticized a Toronto professor for making "slanted comments" about a proposed artificial intelligence data centre in Cape Breton.

Sibo Chen, an associate professor of communication at Toronto Metropolitan University who researches the discourse around AI data centres, said in an interview with CBC News last week that public concern over the proposed facility in Point Tupper, N.S., is valid.

Two days later, a communications adviser in the premier's office sent him an email that called his remarks "irresponsible" and "uninformed."

"Nova Scotians deserve facts, not speculation presented in a way that creates unnecessary anxiety," William Burns wrote in the email.

The email was copied to Chen's department chair at Toronto Metropolitan University, formerly Ryerson University, a step Chen interpreted as an attempt to exert institutional pressure. A reporter at CBC Nova Scotia who interviewed Chen was also copied.

A massive data centre to provide computing power for the artificial intelligence giant Anthropic is under pre-construction just outside Port Hawkesbury in Cape Breton.

EverWind Fuels will build and own the facility, while Anthropic will lease the first phase for a term of at least 20 years. Anthropic said in a news release the data centre "will power Claude models and serve growing demand from Canadian and global customers."

Premier Tim Houston’s cuts to cultural funding have ignited a backlash his government can’t seem to shake

According to his LinkedIn page, [Nova Scotia Independent Energy System Operator CEO Johnny] Johnston started and built his career in the methane industry. For over 21 years, he worked for National Grid plc, a British company that also owns utilities in the northeastern U.S.

By 2016, Johnston worked at National Grid’s SVP Gas Business Enablement, where he “Led the envisioning, development and delivery of an industry leading multi-$100M transformation, to deliver a step change in how National Grid serves its 7 million customers, how its 5,500 front line employees manage their work, and its engineers manage more than $10B in gas assets.”

After leaving National Grid, from August 2023 to August 2024 Johnston was a board member of the American Gas Association, which says that it “represents more than 200 energy companies that provide natural gas [methane] service to 189 million Americans.”

The pigs ran him down over groceries. In a populated area.

Just the three big revenue streams that Houston cancelled — $272.4 million for HST (that benefits those with the money to allow them to be big spenders), $160 million for income tax bracket changes, $40 million for bridge tolls (that primarily benefit people in HRM but have to be made up for by everyone in the province) — add up to $472.4 million.

The cuts save the provincial government just $304.9 million.

With the tolls now gone, the province is budgeting $120.1 million for Halifax Harbour Bridges.

No matter how you slice and dice it all, the fact is that Houston-the-professional-accountant seems to have badly messed up the province’s accounts.

We are in a severe drought and people in this province can be real dumb.