Gus Rioux was ahead of the curve in the public debate about data centres.
Long before proposals in Lorneville and Miramichi were stirring opposition, and long before the New Brunswick government was grappling with how to regulate the sector, Rioux was marching off to the Grand Falls town office, petition in hand.
“We would go outside and all of a sudden it would get really noisy,” said Rioux, who lives in a subdivision near an industrial park in what used to be the rural community of Saint-André. His home is about half a kilometre from the larger of two data centres in the park.
“It was like a lawn mower, constantly,” he said. “It was loud.”
Saint-André was amalgamated into Grand Falls in 2023, making the two data centres the town’s problem.
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With two data centres already running, Grand Falls is ahead of the curve in a hot political debate.
Last month, its municipal council called on the province to impose a moratorium on new data centres or expansions until it can “adequately regulate” the sector.
“We’ve had a few inconveniences, and we wanted to make sure before they expand, or they build another one, that government puts some guidelines in so everything works well for the population,” Mayor Bertrand Beaulieu said.
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