Editor’s note: After the Calgary Journal published this story, CBC News reported that schools across the province “removed at least 166 titles, most of them graphic novels, from shelves.” The data comes from separate freedom of information requests filed by the public broadcaster and Toronto Metropolitan University’s Centre for Free Expression (CFE).
This story updates the Journal’s previous reporting to include addtional information.
Last August, the Edmonton Public School Board began removing books from school libraries as it reviewed current materials to comply with new provincial guidelines on sexual content.
Parents, students, and teachers began sharing posts shortly after claiming that the Alberta Government was banning books.
Some social media commentary and political punditry suggested hundreds of books were being pulled from school library shelves.
The Calgary Journal set out to investigate how many books were actually pulled from library shelves.
The social media claims
Claims circulating online and in public discourse stated that the UCP government’s “sweeping order” led to the removal of “200 books.”
“This is nothing but a knee-jerk reaction to a few religious nuts,” says atagoodclip on Reddit. “Sounds a little like a Christian Nationalist thing. There is no way that this is an issue with by far the majority of Albertans.”
Many drew parallels between what was happening in Alberta last fall and book bans in the U.S.
Justwhytry on Reddit charged, “The Alberta government has failed. The time for change is now, or else we will be in the same boat as the U.S. The UCP took the reins and is bound and determined to never lose control of Alberta again.”
One political commentator highlighted that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whom Danielle Smith has praised in the past, has banned more than 700 books from public schools in his southern state.
Similarly, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives argued that what’s happening in Alberta mirrors “U.S. movements that have long opposed LGBTQ+ inclusion in schools under the banner of parental rights.”
The UCP government’s direction to school boards
In the spring of 2025, the Alberta government issued controversial new policies directing school boards to review school library materials that may contain written or visual depictions of sexual acts.
“As a parent, it is extremely concerning to find out that books explicitly depicting sexual acts are available to students in some school libraries,” said Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides when announcing plans to study whether new rules were needed for school libraries.
“We are going to do something about this serious issue by consulting Albertans and creating standards to ensure students do not have access to age-inappropriate materials in school libraries,” said Nicoladies.
The initial directive required schools to remove these books last fall. The UCP stressed the policy was not intended to remove classic or age-appropriate literature.
A review of the archived government webpage shows that the earlier version of the policy, dated July 2025, contained more details about the government’s intentions than the current version does.
The UCP’s initial policy led the Edmonton Public Schools to suggest a list of more than 200 books, both graphic novels and written works, including The Handmaid’s Tale, Brave New World, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower, during the capital school district’s internal compliance reviews.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith bristled at the provincial capital school district’s list, calling it “vicious compliance,” while stressing that the point of the new rules was to keep graphic, sexually explicit content out of schools from K-12.
The governing UCP’s policy sparked national outrage.
Famed Canadian writer Margaret Atwood blasted Alberta’s controversial ban, even penning a satirical short story about the policy.
Last fall, the province paused its controversial order amid the backlash.
Reporting at the time suggested the UCP U-turn resulted in far fewer books being pulled from shelves than social media claims suggested.
Edmonton Public Schools whittled its proposed list of more than 200 banned books down to 34, according to CBC News.
The Calgary Board of Education removed 44 titles from its library collections.
Together, both public school boards hold more than 3 million books.
In January, The Orchard, a news site offering news analysis from an unabashedly progressive perspective, published the list of 75 banned books in the province’s two largest school districts. Most of the books are graphic novels on LGBTQ+ and transgender themes, with a few minor exceptions.
Government records from last fall clearly show that dozens of books were removed from library shelves in Calgary and Edmonton.
Many of the books removed were award-winning titles that had previously passed publisher, educator, and library review processes.
Last September, British Columbian librarian Shannon Ozirny told CBC Radio that the governing UCP is addressing a problem that simply doesn’t exist.
The evidence
According to data collected by the Centre for Free Expression (CFE) based at Toronto Metropolitan University, Alberta schools have pulled 240 books as a result of the Minister’s Order.
Additionally, the Canadian Library Challenges Database, which tracks books challenged by Canadian libraries, indicates nearly 300 books were removed by Alberta school authorities in 2025.
Freedom of information requests filed separately by the CFE and CBC News uncovered that schools removed at least 166 titles, mainly graphic novels, from their shelves.
A spokesperson for the province told CBC News the order protects kids from graphic imagery.
The governing UCP, for its part, has not made public a list of books pulled from school library shelves.
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