Solicitor-General John van Dongen ordered B.C.’s municipal police forces Tuesday to pull all Tasers acquired before Jan. 1, 2006 out of service.

The order followed a report that one model of the weapon generated a higher electrical voltage than the manufacturer’s specifications.

The RCMP said Tuesday it will be taking all Tasers of the model in question out of service across Canada.

The weapons will be tested to make sure they generate the proper electrical current before being put back in use, van Dongen said.

“The advice I’ve had is that some equipment that was tested independently, Tasers, have been found to not meet the specifications,” van Dongen said.

It was unclear how many weapons in use in B.C. are affected.

Police forces were doing inventories of their Tasers, said van Dongen’s spokeswoman, Karen Johnston.

The Tasers pulled by RCMP across Canada involved 24 weapons, all model X-26.

RCMP Sgt. Tim Shields would not say what model of Taser was used on Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski before he died last fall, or when the device was acquired, saying that information was in the hands of Crown counsel as part of the inquiry into the incident.

B.C. Corrections was also pulling all of the weapons it acquired before 2006, while SkyTrain police and provincial sheriffs planned to test some of their weapons made before 2006, a news release from the provincial government said.

Last week, CBC/Radio Canada aired a report on tests it commissioned on 44 model X-26 Tasers found in the United States. The tests found four of the weapons generated electrical currents that were larger than expected.

The Tasers, tested at an independent facility in the United States, varied within a 15-per-cent range of the manufacturer’s specifications, the CBC reported.

The decision by RCMP to test its Tasers is a long-awaited recognition that there could be mechanical problems with the stun guns, the human rights organization Amnesty International said Tuesday.

“This illustrates the concern that we’ve had for a number of years about the impact of these weapons,” said spokesman John Tackaberry. “If they are misfiring and producing much more power than they should have, then this could be a critical factor in determining what has gone on in circumstances in the past.”

Van Dongen called for uniformity in testing of the weapons in various police departments across the province.

“We are establishing a provincial standard for both testing and calibration, so that we know that all of the equipment that’s in service will meet the required specifications,” he said.

The RCMP said in a news release it had previously contracted its own independent test of 30 Tasers from divisions across the country and found they met manufacturer’s specifications.

Of the 30 tested, half were M-26 models and half were X-26 models — the only two models the RCMP uses.

RCMP Sgt. Greg Cox said Tuesday the 24 Tasers to be newly tested include all of the X-26 models in use by the RCMP. All of them were manufactured prior to Dec. 25, 2005 — similar to the American Tasers tested by the CBC.

It was not clear when the tests will be completed.

“The RCMP believes that when used appropriately by officers who are properly trained, the CEW [conducted energy weapon] is a useful tool which contributes to the safety and security of the public and our police officers,” the news release said.

More than 20 people have died in Canada in recent years after being shocked with a Taser.

Most of those deaths occurred within hours of the incidents, prompting groups such as Amnesty International to call for the use of the device to be suspended.

The highest-profile Taser-related death was that of Dziekanski. A widely distributed video captured Dziekanski just before his death, being shocked with a Taser at Vancouver International airport in October 2007.

An inquiry into Dziekanski’s death, headed by retired judge Thomas Braidwood, has been delayed twice.

In the past year, the RCMP have placed restrictions on the weapon, including directives that they be used only when the safety of officers or the public is threatened. Mounties who are equipped to use the device are required to be re-certified annually.

crolfsen@vancouversun.com