On a recent sunny Saturday, the Lorneville Community Centre on the western outskirts of Saint John was teeming with people going to a benefit concert to support the Save Lorneville movement that seeks to protect a local wetland and ancient forest from industrial expansion.
The concert, which took place on Oct. 3, featured local musicians Lana and Doug, Sarah Hebert, Dan Cyr, Borys-Boris Kornetskyi, Joyce Boone, and High Tide. It also included a silent auction and food and drinks sales, as well as games and activities for children.
According to Lauren Smith, a Lorneville resident and one of the main event organizers, the concert was meant “to raise money so that we can fight, because the municipality as well as the province have been trying to sneak things through without answering any question, which makes this project quite alarming.”
Back in the summer of 2024, a group of neighbours formed a movement called Save Lorneville, as the planned expansion of a local industrial park loomed over the community.
“It’s people who are concerned about the environment,” explained Smith. “The municipality wanted to rezone the land heavy industry. They told us not to worry about potential noxious industrial neighbours, not to worry about our well water, not to worry about emissions. They told us this project would be the greenest industrial park in North America, but still we asked questions and received no answer.”
In June 2025, Saint John City Council voted unanimously to expand the heavy industrial area, defying public opposition in the form of a petition with more than 4,000 signatures, multiple letters, and marathon of council hearings that spanned three sessions, with 75 residents speaking against the proposal.
Only two spoke in favour of the expansion: Andrew Beckett, the chief executive of Envision Saint John, and Craig Bell Estabrooks, president and CEO of Port Saint John.
As the plan to build a data centre on the industrial park came to light in the fall of 2025, the movement expanded and brought together people beyond the community who linked up with the larger anti-data centre movement sweeping across North America and Europe.
“Well, data centres take incredible amounts of electricity and water,” said Ann McAllister, a long-time activist from Saint John with Seniors for Climate. “This data centre would be built in a pristine watershed. It will have a gas plant attached to it to partly power it.”
For Leanne Kingston, who lives in the community next to Lorneville, the concern is around environmental damage, noise pollution and the long-term future.
“I’m concerned about the environmental impact that it’s going to have on the water and the wells in Lorneville,” Kingston said. “Cancer rates are going to go up. We are in an industrialized city, we don’t really need any more of it.”
Emma Donovan, a volunteer from Millidgeville, said that cleaner energy is needed for the future of the planet. “That’s what we should be putting into the industrial park and not wasting our time with massive-scale data centres,” Donovan said.
Gerry Irish, an early supporter of Save Lorneville who volunteered in the kitchen during the event, would like to see a moratorium on data centres.
“I want our city leaders, our provincial leaders, our federal leaders, to take a good hard look, and listen to the people, not just in Lorneville but all throughout New Brunswick and all across Canada,” Irish said.
Development should not happen at the expense of public health and the environment, with “natural resources that are dwindling year after year,” said Irish, who also ran for the Green Party in the last federal election.
Another organizer, Jillian Szabo, a youth resident of Oromocto, moved to the area from Ontario five years ago.
Szabo felt motivated to join the movement after hearing about the proposed Sisson mine northwest of Fredericton and the data centre in Lorneville.
“I just had to get involved,” Szabo said. “And, being that I’m not from the immediate Lorneville community, I think that it helps kind of broaden the impact and just show that if you do care, you can take small actions and that can help unite people and give hope.”
Kristen Wickner, a resident of Saint George who helped coordinate the event, thinks that New Brunswick is a unique province in the sense that there’s a history of “banding together.”
Wickner referenced the movement against fracking that reached a climax in October 2013, when police raided an anti-fracking camp near Rexton. That Indigenous-led movement also brought together Acadian people and English-speaking activists.
“I think that we have an opportunity to really draw on that history,” said Wickner, who earlier this year became the president of the provincial NDP.
The fundraiser for Save Lorneville raised over $6,000, exceeding its initial goal of $5,000.
Data Brainanta is an activist and volunteer reporter based in Saint John.
