Taber, Alberta: Canada’s First Police State
By N Oji Mzilikazi
17 March 2015
Last month, the town council of Taber, Alberta, passed the Community Standards Bylaw that bans public swearing, spitting and yelling. The bylaw was recommended by the police commission and the Taber Police Service.
The police have body armour and the world of sophisticated law-enforcement technologies not to mention weaponry at their disposal. All John Public has is their mouth to swear and yell — at the police (and others), and those acts are now criminalised. And to know the government want to prevent radicalization…
I guess the legislature don’t see anything oppressive in the bylaw.
The bylaw also grants power to peace officers to break up assemblies of three or more people.
Interestingly, in May 2011, Curtis David Paradee, the chairman of the police commission in Taber, was arrested and charged with child pornography offences by Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team’s Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) Unit, and Taber Police Service.
Given that the tip came from the US Department of Homeland Security, the Taber town council ought to focus more on its police force than on draconian bylaws against its citizenry.
Then again, bylaws like those are enacted by municipalities as a tax-grab.