Updated Resource Works polling confirms that B.C. teachers recognize both risks and time-saving potential from AI in the classroom. At the same time, AI ranks far below affordability, health care, and the economy in the list of public priorities.
Next week, British Columbia goes back to school – and straight into one of the most consequential technology debates of the decade.
Resource Works has updated its infographic on what British Columbians think about artificial intelligence and the data centres that power it. The latest addition is a large BC Teachers’ Federation membership survey involving 4,423 public-school teachers.
The findings capture the tension surrounding AI unusually well.
Classroom risks meet administrative benefits
Some 86 per cent of teachers expect students to become overly dependent on AI, while 83 per cent foresee damage to critical-thinking skills. Yet 63 per cent also expect AI to save teachers time by reducing administrative tasks. The survey measured the proportion expecting time savings, not the number of hours they expect to save.
That combination – strong concern accompanied by recognition of practical benefits – also appears in wider polling about AI infrastructure.
An Angus Reid Institute survey found that 51 per cent of its B.C. respondents believed Canada needs domestic AI infrastructure to retain control over digital services. But 71 per cent opposed having a large AI data centre built within a few blocks of their homes.
Public salience versus local opposition
Meanwhile, a new Abacus Data survey offers the clearest available comparison between AI and the issues dominating public attention. Only seven per cent of its B.C. cross-tab selected “the rise of artificial intelligence” among Canada’s three most important issues – 11th of the 13 choices offered.
Cost of living led at 69 per cent, followed by Donald Trump and his administration at 39 per cent, health care at 36 per cent, the economy at 33 per cent and housing at 29 per cent. The B.C. sample size was not disclosed, so the regional figures should be treated as directional. The question also measured AI generally, not data centres specifically.
The emerging political reality is clear: AI remains a low-salience issue until it reaches the classroom, the household electricity bill or the neighbourhood next door. Then it can become intensely personal.
The five tests for data centre development
The updated Resource Works infographic brings those findings together without pretending differently worded surveys constitute a single trend. It also sets out five tests for any proposed data centre: it must pay its own way, create measurable value, use energy efficiently, respect its host community and fit the province’s wider infrastructure plan.
The better answer can be yes – but only when a project earns it.
Stewart Muir is the president and CEO of Resource Works Society.
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