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Alberta

Edmonton man charged with possessing, distributing, and accessing child pornography

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44 year old Jason Campbell arrested

News release from the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team (ALERT)

Extreme child abuse depicted in seized materials

Child sexual abuse material that have been called “extreme” were located on the computer of an Edmonton man following an ALERT Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) investigation.

Jason Campbell, a 44-year-old man from Edmonton, was arrested at west Edmonton home on November 9, 2023 with the help from the Edmonton Police Service. Campbell has been charged with possessing, distributing, and accessing child pornography.

Computers and electronic devices seized from Campbell’s home were analyzed. ICE forensic technicians located a collection of child sexual abuse materials depicting extremely graphic abuse and violence against young children.

“The unfortunate trend we are seeing in our office is the escalation of the egregiousness of the child sexual abuse material located during our investigations, which causes our unit great concern. Some of the child sexual abuse material I saw in this investigation ranks amongst the worst I have had to be exposed to,” said Staff Sgt. Jonathan Morrison, ICE.

Campbell’s arrest came after the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children shared information about an unknown suspect sharing child sexual abuse materials online. ICE opened its investigation in September 2023 as a priority file given the extreme content depicted.

This is not Campbell’s first-time facing charges in relation to an ICE investigation. In November 2015 he was charged for similar offences and public notification was issued as he was also reportedly offering his services as a babysitter.

“Given the nature of the material and the prior history of the accused, ICE is concerned that Jason Campbell may have had access to children in the creation of child sexual abuse material. We are working with the RCMP Victim Identification Unit, but I also want to encourage anyone to contact police with any information they may have in relation to this matter, or if their children had contact with Jason Campbell,” added Morrison.

Campbell was released from custody and is awaiting his next court appearance scheduled for November 24, 2023.

Anyone with information about either of these cases or any child exploitation situation is asked to contact their local police, or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477).

ALERT was established and is funded by the Alberta Government and is a compilation of the province’s most sophisticated law enforcement resources committed to tackling serious and organized crime.

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Alberta

Temporary Alberta grid limit unlikely to dampen data centre investment, analyst says

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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.

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Alberta

Alberta Next: Taxation

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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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