Dozens protest Meta’s plan for massive data centre in northern Alberta county

MORINVILLE — Dozens of people are protesting tech giant Meta’s plan to build its first Canadian data centre in a county north of Edmonton.

Ben Baril is the 20-year-old organizer of the protest in Morinville, a town in Sturgeon County, where the tech giant behind Facebook announced last month it’s building its massive one-gigawatt data centre.

Baril says the $13-billion-plus facility will strain Alberta’s water supply and energy grid, and contribute to the climate crisis in the future.

He says protesters are also against data centres across Canada because the expansion of artificial intelligence threatens jobs.