Alberta
Three Hills RCMP charge man with sexual assault of four victims at Prairie College in Three Hills. Looking for more victims

News release from Three Hills RCMP
Three Hills RCMP charge male with historic sexual assaults
On June 10, 2021, Three Hills RCMP initiated an investigation after receiving a report regarding an alleged historic sexual assault. On March 28, 2023, Derek Taplin was apprehended by Winnipeg Police Service on a Canada Wide Warrant and will be escorted back to the Province of Alberta.
Derek Taplin (43) a resident of Winnipeg, has been charged with the following:
- Sexual Exploitation of a Young Person x4
- Sexual Interference x4
- Sexual Assault x4
- Invitation to Sexual Touching x4
Through investigation, police have identified 4 alleged victims from multiple incidents at the Prairie College in Three Hills, spanning a two-year period from 2002 to 2004. The investigation is still ongoing and police believe there may be more victims and are urging any other victims or anyone with information to come forward. To aid in this investigation, RCMP are releasing a photo of Taplin.
Sexual assault is a serious crime, and the Three Hills RCMP investigates every complaint thoroughly, with the utmost professionalism and care. A complaint for sexual offences can be made at any time, no matter how far back the incident happened. If you are a survivor of sexual assault or harassment, or if you have information about a crime of sexual nature that may assist an ongoing investigation, please contact the Three Hills RCMP at 403-443-5539. If you would like to remain anonymous, please contact Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477), by downloading the secure P3 Mobile App, or by submitting a form online at P3Tips.com.
A court date for Taplin is unknown at this time. The investigation is ongoing.
Alberta
Temporary Alberta grid limit unlikely to dampen data centre investment, analyst says

From the Canadian Energy Centre
By Cody Ciona
‘Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests’
Billions of investment in new data centres is still expected in Alberta despite the province’s electric system operator placing a temporary limit on new large-load grid connections, said Carson Kearl, lead data centre analyst for Enverus Intelligence Research.
Kearl cited NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang’s estimate from earlier this year that building a one-gigawatt data centre costs between US$60 billion and US$80 billion.
That implies the Alberta Electric System Operator (AESO)’s 1.2 gigawatt temporary limit would still allow for up to C$130 billion of investment.
“It’s got the potential to be extremely impactful to the Alberta power sector and economy,” Kearl said.
Importantly, data centre operators can potentially get around the temporary limit by ‘bringing their own power’ rather than drawing electricity from the existing grid.
In Alberta’s deregulated electricity market – the only one in Canada – large energy consumers like data centres can build the power supply they need by entering project agreements directly with electricity producers.
According to the AESO, there are 30 proposed data centre projects across the province.
The total requested power load for these projects is more than 16 gigawatts, roughly four gigawatts more than Alberta’s demand record in January 2024 during a severe cold snap.
For comparison, Edmonton’s load is around 1.4 gigawatts, the AESO said.
“Alberta has never seen this level and volume of load connection requests,” CEO Aaron Engen said in a statement.
“Because connecting all large loads seeking access would impair grid reliability, we established a limit that preserves system integrity while enabling timely data centre development in Alberta.”
As data centre projects come to the province, so do jobs and other economic benefits.
“You have all of the construction staff associated; electricians, engineers, plumbers, and HVAC people for all the cooling tech that are continuously working on a multi-year time horizon. In the construction phase there’s a lot of spend, and that is just generally good for the ecosystem,” said Kearl.
Investment in local power infrastructure also has long-term job implications for maintenance and upgrades, he said.
“Alberta is a really exciting place when it comes to building data centers,” said Beacon AI CEO Josh Schertzer on a recent ARC Energy Ideas podcast.
“It has really great access to natural gas, it does have some excess grid capacity that can be used in the short term, it’s got a great workforce, and it’s very business-friendly.”
The unaltered reproduction of this content is free of charge with attribution to the Canadian Energy Centre.
Alberta
Alberta Next: Taxation

A new video from the Alberta Next panel looks at whether Alberta should stop relying on Ottawa to collect our provincial income taxes. Quebec already does it, and Alberta already collects corporate taxes directly. Doing the same for personal income taxes could mean better tax policy, thousands of new jobs, and less federal interference. But it would take time, cost money, and require building new systems from the ground up.
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