Alberta sends first Tasers to Ontario for testing

Alberta has sent its first batch of older-model X26 Taser stun guns to Ontario for testing.

The province will test 400 Tasers that were purchased by police services before Jan. 1, 2006 to make sure they're operating within the proper specifications.

The first 100 have been sent to a testing centre run by engineering firm MPB Communications Inc. in Kanata, Ont., the province said  Tuesday.

The RCMP has used MPB to test some of their older-model stun guns, which police forces use to incapacitate people with an electric shock.

The Alberta government has not ordered any police departments to take their stun guns out of service.

The government is still working with the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton and the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary to set up testing sites at both schools. 

Once renovations and equipment purchases at the schools are complete, continued Taser testing will be carried out in Alberta.

Altogether, the province has 1,100 Taser stun guns in service.  Alberta solicitor-general Fred Lindsay said Tuesday the province plans to test all of them at some point.

"We're planning on putting in an ongoing program to test all of our Tasers, so over the course of time, they will all be tested"  Lindsay said.

"It will be a regular thing," he said.

Alberta ordered the testing after a CBC News and Radio-Canada investigation found that some of the stun guns deliver a higher level of electricity than the manufacturer promises.

In a series of CBC-commissioned tests on 41 stun guns, four of the units delivered significantly more current than the manufacturer, Taser International, said was possible. In some cases, the current was up to 50 per cent stronger than specified on the devices.

Taser International has called the testing "flawed".

In written releases to news agencies, the Arizona-based company said the CBC investigation made scientific errors by failing to spark-test the weapons before firing them, which the company recommends to police officers.