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BC gets its first major AI data centre | Political Capital Daily · Political Capital with Rob Shaw

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  Speaker 1: Political Capital Daily is brought to you by the BC
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  Speaker 1: com to book your flight Now onto the show. It's Tuesday,
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  Speaker 1: May twelfth, twenty six and this is Political Capital Daily. Well,
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  Speaker 1: good morning and a happy Tuesday to you as we
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  Speaker 1: work our way through this break week from the legislature
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  Speaker 1: in BC politics. I'm your host, Robshaw. Thank you for
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  Speaker 1: being here. I've got some guests joining from Political Capital
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  Speaker 1: Prime later in the week, but today it is me
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  Speaker 1: walking you through today's political agenda. I want to start
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  Speaker 1: with what to expect today on Tuesday. We'll go through
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  Speaker 1: the items here. Another press conference from Forest Minister Rabb
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  Speaker 1: Parmar on value added wood products. He's in West Kelowna,
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  Speaker 1: expected to make an announcement there at one pm. The
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  Speaker 1: web Summit in Vancouver continuing to produce news, AI Minister
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  Speaker 1: Evan Solomon speaking at nine to thirty am with a
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  Speaker 1: press conference on AI and then Premier David Ebe speaking
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  Speaker 1: on the main stage at ten am. Well Jobs Minister
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  Speaker 1: Ravi Kaylon is hosting an event there on the life
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  Speaker 1: sciences topic at ten am. The Jobs Minister mister Kalon
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  Speaker 1: also up later in the day at eleven thirty at
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  Speaker 1: Simon Fraser University with a vice president of Research and
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  Speaker 1: the Chief Investment Officer of NBC Investment Corp, the Crown
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  Speaker 1: corporation that the government created recently to partner with investment,
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  Speaker 1: making an announcement about the economy. Premier David Ebe up
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  Speaker 1: tomorrow as well, outside of the webs Summit at two
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  Speaker 1: pm for an event on the FIFA World Cup readiness
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  Speaker 1: at BC Place, where he will showcase the literal homegrown
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  Speaker 1: field that BC Place has put in the ground for
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  Speaker 1: the FIFA soccer matches, which are set to start in
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  Speaker 1: one month from now. Also a press conference from the
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  Speaker 1: Community Advisory Group on Extortion that the Minister of Public
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  Speaker 1: Safety put in place earlier this year. Paul dad Why,
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  Speaker 1: the chair of that group, will be joined by police
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  Speaker 1: leaders from the Canada Border Service Agency, the Deputy Commissioner
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  Speaker 1: of the BCRCNP, the police chiefs of Surrey, Delta and
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  Speaker 1: Abbotsford for a press conference that will occur virtually at
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  Speaker 1: five pm. So a busy day in BC's political agenda.
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  Speaker 1: Let's go through the topics that occurred on Monday, May
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  Speaker 1: the eleventh, bring up to speed on the news that
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  Speaker 1: you might have amissed in BC politics that day. We
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  Speaker 1: will begin with Medical Health Officer doctor Bonnie Henry up
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  Speaker 1: with the latest on the Hanta virus. We talked about
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  Speaker 1: that on Monday's show, but she was giving some more
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  Speaker 1: details on the four people that have been quarantined in
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  Speaker 1: British Columbia. Two of them are in their seventies, one
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  Speaker 1: is in their fifties. Three of them are in Greater
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  Speaker 1: Victoria in self isolation. Doctor Henry is sort of clarifying
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  Speaker 1: a bit what that means. People who are either in
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  Speaker 1: their home or in another location not allowed to interact
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  Speaker 1: with anyone else. They're supposed to be where masks. They
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  Speaker 1: may be allowed to go out for a walk if
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  Speaker 1: they don't talk to or meet anyone, and their food
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  Speaker 1: and other items are brought to them in an attempt
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  Speaker 1: to quarantine them. They have not shown any symptoms of
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  Speaker 1: this haunted virus that took over the cruise ship and
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  Speaker 1: led to eight infections and three deaths. Sorry, twenty infections
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  Speaker 1: and three deaths, and that have spanned quarantines in twenty countries. Now.
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  Speaker 1: There were six people in Canada aboard that cruise ship,
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  Speaker 1: two of them in Ontario. Doctor Henry also taking questions
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  Speaker 1: again about the public reaction to this, with a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people again getting that sort of post traumatic stress
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  Speaker 1: indicator from COVID nineteen. Seeing doctor Henry up talking about
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  Speaker 1: an infectious disease here, she is just a bit about
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  Speaker 1: that and also the response from the World Health Organization
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  Speaker 1: to this issue.
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  Speaker 2: When I first heard about what was happening on board
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  Speaker 2: this cruise ship, I did have a bit of a
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  Speaker 2: sinking feeling. But once it was identified as huntavirus, and
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  Speaker 2: once we were very confident that what was causing it.
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  Speaker 2: At first, you know, I was a little incredulous because
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  Speaker 2: I hadn't heard much about the strain that could pass
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  Speaker 2: from person to person. But again, you know globally with
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  Speaker 2: the infectious disease specialist, with public health and ID colleagues
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  Speaker 2: around the globe, we all have a very similar approach
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  Speaker 2: to this and we calmed each other down. So it
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  Speaker 2: is very different, important, serious, and we need to take
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  Speaker 2: all those measures to make sure there's no opportunity for
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  Speaker 2: others to be exposed to this very, very unfortunate, tragic situation.
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  Speaker 1: In other news, tell Us announcing a massive multi billion
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  Speaker 1: dollar investment in British Columbia AI data centers in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with West Bank and the provincial and federal governments. It's
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  Speaker 1: kind of a three part strategy. It appears. There is
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  Speaker 1: already an AI data center in Kamloops that the Tellis
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  Speaker 1: intends to expand in future years. There's a data center
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  Speaker 1: as planning for Mount Pleasant in Vancouver to open at
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  Speaker 1: the end of twenty twenty six and scale up through
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty eight, and another one plan your BC Place
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  Speaker 1: in Vancouver for twenty twenty nine, with renderings that look
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  Speaker 1: absolutely massive four hundred thousand square feet the size of
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  Speaker 1: seven football fields or twice the size of a Walmart.
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  Speaker 1: The power requirements for these data centers are extraordinary, tell Us,
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  Speaker 1: estimating one hundred and fifty megawatts by twenty thirty two.
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  Speaker 1: To put that into perspective, that's twelve percent of the
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  Speaker 1: capacity of electricity generated by site see alone. So you
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  Speaker 1: look at the massive amounts of power required for AI
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  Speaker 1: data centers, one of the reasons the BC government earlier
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  Speaker 1: this year announced it was going to limit power available
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  Speaker 1: to data centers, ration that out and focus on areas
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  Speaker 1: of the economy to generate more jobs. Tell Us saying
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  Speaker 1: this will be a nine yet billion dollar economic value
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  Speaker 1: to BC by twenty thirty two with one thousand construction jobs.
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  Speaker 1: Evan Solomon, the AI Minister there as part of the announcement.
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  Speaker 1: Here's what he had to say, tell Us.
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  Speaker 3: His project is the first one we're announcing publicly that
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  Speaker 3: we are moving ahead and advancing under our enabling large
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  Speaker 3: scale SOVEREIGNAI Data Center initiative. If you practice that enough,
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  Speaker 3: you can say it quickly. It reflects the kind of
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  Speaker 3: ambitious infrastructure that we need as a country. A large scale,
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  Speaker 3: sustainable sovereign AI factory here in BC, A project drawing
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  Speaker 3: ninety eight percent of its power from BC hydro's renewable sources.
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  Speaker 3: A project using closed loop liquid cooling to reduce cooling
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  Speaker 3: energy by eighty percent compared to traditional data centers eighty
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  Speaker 3: percent less. A project where the waste heat is captured
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  Speaker 3: from servers and can be transferred into the Creative Energy
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  Speaker 3: District system heating buildings around it up to one hundred
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  Speaker 3: and fifty thousand homes.
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  Speaker 1: The Tellus Data Center AI data center would be one
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  Speaker 1: of the biggest in the country. A slight change in
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  Speaker 1: the direction of AI in British Columbia was mostly software
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  Speaker 1: focused application focus, not the massive data center to train
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  Speaker 1: AI models on a large scale learning but nonetheless a
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  Speaker 1: major investment from tell Us here. Another issue, the BC
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  Speaker 1: Conservative leadership debate issue continues. We talked about this on
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  Speaker 1: yesterday's show. Carolyn Finley, the one of the candidates in
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  Speaker 1: Saturday's global BC leadership debate, suggesting that candidate Peter Millibar
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  Speaker 1: is in a conflict of interest on the issues of
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  Speaker 1: Indigenous reconciliation policy and perhaps not fit to be leader
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  Speaker 1: because his wife is Indigenous. She was widely condemned for
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  Speaker 1: those comments, for Conservative MPs questioning her one saying she's
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  Speaker 1: playing the race card abhorrent and unacceptable comments. Millibar responded
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  Speaker 1: on Monday, two full days after the debate, and he
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  Speaker 1: basically sidestepped mostly Carolyn Finley and found a way to
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  Speaker 1: attack Ian Black, the only conservative candidate who had come
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  Speaker 1: out and defended Peter Millibar, calling him an honorable man.
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  Speaker 1: Here's some of what Peter Millibar had to say in the.
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  Speaker 4: Last forty eight hours. Many of you have reached out
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  Speaker 4: to me personally to denounce Caryln Finley's ridiculous accusations about
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  Speaker 4: my family.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you.
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  Speaker 4: I want to make something abundantly clear. I addressed the
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  Speaker 4: ridiculous statements made by Carolyn Finley right there on the stage.
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  Speaker 4: Every leadership candidate should have when she was trying to
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  Speaker 4: use my family for her own personal political gain. That
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  Speaker 4: was a leadership test right then and there, and I
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  Speaker 4: was the only one who called her out. Unfortunately, we
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  Speaker 4: saw the other three candidates stand in silence until twenty
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  Speaker 4: four hours later when mister Black's team thought there was
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  Speaker 4: political hay to be made by leveraging my family once again.
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  Speaker 4: As a result, here I am having a comment on
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  Speaker 4: these allegations instead of focusing on the issues impacting British Columbians.
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  Speaker 4: These are serious times. I would have hoped mister Black's
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  Speaker 4: videos would have actually addressed my invitation to debate economic policy,
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  Speaker 4: rather than elongating this ridiculous narrative to score political points.
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  Speaker 1: Enough is enough A somewhat ridiculous video, if you ask me,
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  Speaker 1: until you realize that Peter Millibar and Ian Black are
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  Speaker 1: fishing from the same conservative voter pool, that moderate, sort
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  Speaker 1: of kind of BC liberal adjacent version of the conservative voter.
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  Speaker 1: Still a remarkable ability for Peter Millibar to take an
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  Speaker 1: attack by one candidate, switch it completely around and fire
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  Speaker 1: it back at someone else who tried to defend him.
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  Speaker 1: I suggested that yesterday on the show that this was
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  Speaker 1: a mask slip moment for caerry Lynn Finley arguing that
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  Speaker 1: Indigenous people shouldn't be involved in indigenous politics. Perhaps a
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  Speaker 1: mask slip moment for Peter Millibar as well, on some
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  Speaker 1: of the roomlessness behind that easygoing, affable persona that he
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  Speaker 1: portrays in the leadership race. Meanwhile, Carolyn Finley, speaking to
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  Speaker 1: her own supporters on Monday, denying that she was being racist,
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  Speaker 1: insisting that she was raising conflict of interest questions on
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  Speaker 1: Indigenous peoples and family members in their ability to benefit
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  Speaker 1: on reconciliation policy. So we'll see where that one goes.
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  Speaker 1: I want to run you through three quick items here
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  Speaker 1: from the BC government on Monday. A twelve million dollar
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  Speaker 1: announcement by Forest Minister Rabbi Parmar to the Forest's Innovation
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  Speaker 1: Investment Council is something that the BC government helps run
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  Speaker 1: with an investment from the industry to support trade diversification
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  Speaker 1: and use of BC would at home and abroad. Two
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  Speaker 1: million dollars of this going to China, paving the way
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  Speaker 1: for Premier David Ebe's trade mission there next month to
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  Speaker 1: try and advance engagement with key Chinese regulatory agencies to
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  Speaker 1: position BC as a global leader in wood construction. We'll
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  Speaker 1: see how that to China goes. New funding from the
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  Speaker 1: government yesterday for School DO six to open before and
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  Speaker 1: after care announced by Education Mister Lisa Bhaer. Funding to
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  Speaker 1: repurpose existing school spaces, which the government said would be
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  Speaker 1: cheaper than building new before and after care spaces. A
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  Speaker 1: whopping five million dollars from the government towards this initiative
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  Speaker 1: across the province. A minuscule amount towards retrofitting and changing
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  Speaker 1: school spaces, but it gives you a sense of how
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  Speaker 1: broke this government actually is. And a commitment to twenty
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  Speaker 1: million dollars over three years to support operating costs for
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  Speaker 1: the new spaces. I don't expect that will go very far,
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  Speaker 1: but an emphasis from government. We've seen this before on
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  Speaker 1: before and aftercare at school sites as it tries to
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  Speaker 1: move the ten dollars day childcare system, which it is
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  Speaker 1: unable to create despite having promised that many times in
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  Speaker 1: several elections, to a school based system for the future. Also,
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  Speaker 1: the government announcing new requirements for local communities to do
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  Speaker 1: emergency planning, giving them eight months until January twenty twenty
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  Speaker 1: seven requirement to come up with their own emergency management plans,
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  Speaker 1: business continuity plans and hazard risk assessments in cooperation with
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  Speaker 1: local indigenous governing parties. Part of a law that was
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  Speaker 1: passed in twenty twenty three, the government enacting it now
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  Speaker 1: to give what it calls clarity to local governments on
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  Speaker 1: what they need to do to prepare for emergencies. Tourism
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  Speaker 1: Minister and King also up with a statement hyping up
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  Speaker 1: the one month mark to the FIFA World Cup. She
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  Speaker 1: did not disclose any of the costs for hosting the
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  Speaker 1: FIFA Games or for the security costs for FIFA. We
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  Speaker 1: expect Premier davidb to get asked that later today when
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  Speaker 1: he is up. That's still a secret. One month from
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  Speaker 1: the first match. BBC Real Estate Association also out with
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  Speaker 1: new statistics. Sales were down in April one point nine
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  Speaker 1: percent across the province compared to April of last year.
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  Speaker 1: The average resident price of real estate in British Columbia
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  Speaker 1: up zero point eight percent to sit at nine hundred
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  Speaker 1: and fifty two thousand dollars compared to last year. The
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  Speaker 1: Real Estate Association. There's a bunch of local economic challenges,
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  Speaker 1: upward pressure on borrowing rates, the global oil supply shock
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  Speaker 1: suppressing sales activity. Depends on where you live across the province.
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  Speaker 1: A mixed bag on up and down, but generally a
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  Speaker 1: flat real estate market right now, which influences government revenue
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  Speaker 1: through the property transfer tax and housing starts which are
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  Speaker 1: estimated in the government budget as well. That's a quick
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  Speaker 1: rundown of what's happening in BC politics today, bringing up
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  Speaker 1: to speed on what happened yesterday. We'll be back tomorrow
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  Speaker 1: with all the latest in BC politics here on Political
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  Speaker 1: Capital Daily. Thanks for listening.