NOTE: As of Sept. 2, the book restrictions implemented by the Alberta government have been put on pause until further notice.
Book banning and restrictions of literature is not a new phenomenon. Historically, the consumption of books has been prohibited in many eras, from the burnings of Alexandria to Nazi Germany and in many cases, today.
Within the last couple of years book restrictions have surged, often fuelled by conservative advocacy groups on the topics of race and 2SLGBTQI.
On May 26, 2025, Demetrios Nicolaides, the Minister of Education and Childcare for Alberta, announced the creation of new guidelines on what can be on the shelves in school libraries.
“I want to be clear right from the onset. This is not a question of banning specific books or specific titles, but rather establishing clear policies and guidelines for all school divisions to follow,” said Nicolaides at the press conference in May.
Initially, the book restrictions were brought to Nicolaides’ attention by concerned parents and advocacy groups, such as the Parents for Choice in Education (PCE) and Action4Canada. After some investigation by his office, they found evidence of mature themes, nudity, profanity, drug and alcohol use in K-12 library shelves.
On July 10, Nicolaides’ office announced that any books that contain mature themes will be removed from the library shelves by Oct 1, 2025.
John Hilton O’Brien, the executive director of PCE, said that some individuals were attempting to use school libraries as a means to bypass parental consent when it comes to sexual education directed towards minors.
“Any time that someone is trying to make decisions about what to present to children while not telling their parents about that, you’re going to run into trouble,” said Hilton O’Brien. He added, “There’s a place for sex education with parental consent, and there’s a time to talk about more mature themes, but you need to be very careful about the ages and circumstances.”
Hilton O’Brien stated the PCE has had concerns dating back to 2012. But, according to the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF), the conservative activist group has been working directly with the UCP government for the past two years.
The PCE and Action4Canada have identified four books they claim are sexually explicit: Gender Queer: A Memoir by Maia Kobabe, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, Blankets by Craig Thompson and Flamer by Mike Curato, all of which have 2SLGBTQI themes to it.
On Aug 28, CTV News reported a former Edmonton school board trustee received an internal document that identified books that contain “sexual material” for removal, including The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Forever by Judy Blume — all award winning books targeted for removal. In addition, the CBC obtained a list of 200 books that have been flagged for removal in Edmonton Public School libraries this fall.
Clearly a case of censorship
PEN Canada is an organization devoted to defending freedom of expression, providing relief for writers in peril, and celebrating literature. It is one of 148 centres of PEN International. Ira Wells, the president of PEN Canada and professor of literature at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, says this new policy is disappointing and the government is not being straightforward with its voters.
“To the best of my knowledge, none of these books were compulsory reading. They weren’t being forced on students through curriculum. They were just in the libraries. It was already very much a kind of opt-in scenario.”
According to Wells, the words used by the Alberta government have specific definitions. He quotes Emily Drabinski, the former president of the American Library Association, who defines book banning as “the removal of a title from a library because someone considers it harmful.”
Other library associations he mentions is the Ontario Library Association, which defines censorship as “the removal, suppression, restriction of circulation because someone deems them morally objectionable.”
“This initiative is clearly an instance of book banning, it is an instance of censorship, regardless of the slippery language the Alberta government is using,” said Wells.
Open-ended guidelines
Nicolaides believes that because of the varying standards between school boards, “sexually explicit books” have been able to find a place in school libraries. As such, Alberta has developed a set of voluntary guidelines for library books that schools can choose to follow. It’s a matter of what school boards decide is age-appropriate material.
The proposed guidelines deem that all schools in Alberta, whether that is public, independent, francophone or charter schools, will be required to follow the new guidelines for standards in school libraries. However, under the Education Act, Nicolaides said he cannot dictate which specific books can be removed. School authorities are tasked with reviewing and monitoring students for age-appropriate books.
Specific explicit sexual content with clear depictions of physical acts like masturbation and penetration will not be accessible to all grades. While non-sexual content like puberty, menstruation and handholding will be allowed for all grades.
From grades K-9, anything that does not have clear or detailed depictions of sexually explicit content will not be allowed, but for Grades 10-12, explicit non-sexual content will be allowed if developmentally appropriate. However, the guidelines remain unclear as to what non sexually explicit material is.
Exceptions to the rule
Many TikTok users on social media, like George Rivard, state that if the Alberta government wants to ban explicit books, they should start with the Bible.
Nicolades said he has no intention of removing religious texts: “Religious texts are components of preserving an individual’s freedom of religion,” said Nicolades.
Hilton O’Brien supported the government’s view saying the Bible does not have explicit depictions in it and should not be removed from bookshelves. The PCE also said they aren’t trying to remove all coming-of-age books that involve sexuality, just the sexually graphic ones.
“There are legitimate coming-of-age stories that do involve sexuality,” said Hilton O’Brien, citing Catcher in the Rye as an example.
Alberta taps into a U. S. database
The IJF reported that the Alberta government used a list of books and a controversial database to pinpoint a list of books that are considered to be inappropriate.
The IJF retrieved emails via the Freedom of Information Act that indicate that James Johnson, Chief of Staff for Education and Childcare for the Alberta Government, shared a link to an article on PEN America’s database of banned and challenged books in the United States to help build new guidelines for Alberta school libraries.
The government of Alberta also looked into censored titles through book bans in Austin, Texas. The majority of the banned books in Texas were found in the Calgary Board of Education and the Edmonton Public School Board libraries.
What do Albertans think about this new policy?
The Ministry of Education and Childcare launched a survey on whether to set new guidelines for books in school libraries. The majority of the respondents replied that they do not want the province involved. The government, however, decided to go ahead with setting new standards.
From May 26 to June 6, Alberta residents were asked in a survey several questions about the guidelines on sexually explicit content. Of the 197,000 responses generated in the survey, the number used was reduced to 77,395 citing multiple responses from one IP address and possible bots.
The survey gathered information from six different categories, including parents with school-aged children, parents with children not in school, teachers, school administrators, school or public librarians and other interested Albertans.
“Education is absolutely something where parental input is essential. But it’s not up to special interest groups or one subsection of parents to determine what all children can read.”
Ira Wells
Results revealed that school and public librarians have the highest percentage of disagreement, with 74 per cent not in favour of the government setting standards on library materials.
Whereas, 49 per cent of parents with school-aged children opposed the Alberta government’s involvement in managing library contents. While 44 per cent of parents with school-aged children were in favour of it.
Hilton O’brien, who said librarians, school administrators and anyone opposed to the ban that are “activists,” should not be allowed to push their beliefs in school libraries.
“The reasons that some activists would disagree is that they are using these books in libraries or have been using these books in libraries to put forward their own agenda, and that’s why they’re upset about it. It’s like they will no longer be allowed to use school libraries to promote their agendas,” said Hilton O’Brien.
What are the potential harms of book restrictions?
Wells, on the other hand, said organizations that advocate for the removal of books will be denying students different narratives that could enrich their lives and also deprive them of access to information. He added that when students are confronted with ideas that may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable, banning books as a solution is a corrosive approach to teach children.
“The people of Alberta have to ask themselves whether partisan elected officials should have a mandate to cull the province’s libraries according to their own values.”
Wells warns that while school libraries are being targeted right now, public libraries could be up next and that young readers will find other means of accessing information despite Alberta’s new guidelines.
“Students will continue to turn away from reading. Censorship doesn’t work.”
Is there a middle ground?
The PCE claims its goal as an organization of concerned parents is to prevent the sexualization of children, making the removal of books that are “sexually explicit” from school libraries a necessity.
Wells agrees, saying, “Education is absolutely something where parental input is essential. But it’s not up to special interest groups or one subsection of parents to determine what all children can read.”
He concludes it is not up to libraries to become propaganda organs for any government in power to utilize.