On a dry, hot day this summer, Kathryn Barnwell, a retired English professor, marched up the road from her home in Nanaimo, B.C., to take another crack at the mayor.

Leonard Krog, a longtime friend of Barnwell’s, was standing by the entrance to a parched wooded lot, the proposed site for a data centre Krog has been backing.

“I really, really enjoin you to think about what this [data centre] could mean for your political career,” Barnwell said, barely looking him in the eye.

Krog, who has been mayor since 2018, sees the project as a chance to modernize the city’s economy.

“The kind of jobs that would be attracted to this kind of facility are the jobs of the future,” he said.

Until three years ago, Barnwell knew little about data centres, which house the computer servers that power much

See Full Page