Tech and AI
Twenty three data centre operators sign a Canadian code that grants no consent
By Staff Writer | 5 September 2026
Ottawa has published five expectations for data centre projects and the largest builders of artificial intelligence capacity have signed them. It creates no federal approval, and the municipalities that do the consenting have said what they still need.
The Government of Canada launched Canada's Responsible Data Centre Development Principles in Toronto on Thursday 3 September 2026. The announcement was made by Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, joined by Tim Tierney, President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
The framework sets five expectations for data centre projects: that they create lasting local benefits; that they do not shift electricity costs to Canadians; that they minimise water use and environmental impacts; that they are transparent about local impacts; and that they bring strategic value to Canada.
Canada is building the digital infrastructure we need to lead in the age of AI, grow our economy and strengthen our sovereignty. But how we build matters.
Evan Solomon, Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and Minister responsible for the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario
What it is not
The release is explicit that the principles establish no new federal approval process and do not replace provincial, territorial, municipal or Indigenous regulatory responsibilities. The stated purpose is a nationally recognised baseline that communities can reach for when a major project arrives, sitting alongside the consents that already exist rather than above them. The federal government describes data centre decisions as fundamentally local.
Twenty three organisations have signed. They include Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, Beacon Data Centers, Bell Canada, BUZZ High Performance Computing, Cohere, Cologix, Denvr Dataworks, Equinix, eStruxture, Google, Hypertec Group, Meta, Micrologic, Microsoft, OpenAI, OVHcloud, Prologis, QScale, Sovereign Digital Infrastructure, TELUS, ThinkOn and Urbacon Data Centre Solutions.
What the municipalities asked for
Tierney put the position of the authorities who will actually determine these applications. Municipalities are being asked to review complex proposals with large local effects, and the announcement, he said, was an important first step in helping them understand and assess what is being put in front of them.
No two data centre projects are alike, nor will they have the same impact. Municipal leaders need clear and complete information to make informed decisions.
Tim Tierney, President of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities
That is a request for information, not for a power. It arrives while Canadian authorities are reaching for the powers they do have. The Town of Oakville was the first to enact a formal freeze on data centre development, and Mississauga is holding a final vote on a proposed moratorium this month.
The framework is voluntary and non binding. It also stops short of saying what should generate the electricity, which is the question underneath the second principle. A project that does not shift costs to other ratepayers must either offset the increase it causes or bring its own generation, and in Canada to date bringing your own generation has usually meant gas.
For a developer, a signed set of principles is evidence rather than permission. It is something to put in front of a planning committee alongside the load letter and the water balance, and it will be read as a promise the applicant has made about a project the committee is still entitled to refuse. For an authority, the value is narrower and more practical: a common list of the questions worth asking, so that the twentieth application is assessed against the same expectations as the first.
Nobody has been given a new consent and nobody has lost one. What has changed is that the industry has written down, in one place and with its name against it, what a defensible data centre application is supposed to look like.