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TABER, Alta. — “If I were to swear right now, I wouldn’t get a fine?” I ask.

I’m sitting in the squat brown police station in the Alberta town of Taber with Police Chief Alf Rudd.

We’re in his office, its walls decorated with framed prints and tapestries — mementos of his 45 years as an officer, most of them spent in the most violent and dysfunctional part of the province, places far, far tougher than Taber.

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“Please help me,” he says. “Please help me. Let’s be a shining example of that not happening in Taber. Cuss me.”

“Shit,” I say. “Damn. And there you have it.”

Chief Rudd does not issue a fine — of course, we are inside, not outside, causing a disturbance. But he promises to give me a pass if I need to belt out a few in the parking lot.

“Someone who swears, they’re not going to get charged and they’re not going to get a ticket for swearing.” he explains. “It’s the person who is swearing at everybody, standing on the street corner and having a swearing fit, an obscene language fit, a blasphemous fit — whatever you want to call it — and, again, causing a disturbance. That’s when we would go down.”