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Last September, Bert Skeete decided to visit West Edmonton Mall.

The Mississauga, Ont., resident was vacationing in Edmonton and planned to explore the famous shopping centre on one of his afternoons in the city.

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But instead of leaving with shopping bags, the 79-year-old was lifted up and carried from the property by two mall security guards whom he says misidentified him as a shoplifter.

Skeete, a former security guard himself, was so upset by how the guards treated him that he left Edmonton the next day, cutting his visit short.

“I was hurt I was treated the way I was,” he said. “What they were trying to investigate had nothing at all to do with me.”

Skeete is one of several people in the past few years to go public with complaints about the conduct of Alberta security guards.

The complaints come during a time of rapid growth in Alberta’s private security sector. In 2007, there were around 6,000 licensed private security guards in Alberta. There are now more than 24,000 security professionals of all types licensed to work in the province, according to provincial statistics.