The government of Alberta is embarking on a new policy to ensure what it calls “age-inappropriate” depictions of sexual content are kept out of school libraries across the province.
In a news conference on Monday, Demetrios Nicolaides, minister of education and childcare in Danielle Smith’s United Conservative Party government, said the new policy is intended to ensure consistency across the province’s elementary and junior high schools regarding what is and is not considered acceptable material for inclusion on library shelves.
“When kids go to school and visit their school library, we want to know that they’re finding age-appropriate materials on the shelves,” Nicolaides said.
He went on to say that investigations conducted by his office have unearthed “extremely age-inappropriate content” at schools in the K–12 range.
“This is not a question of banning specific books,” Nicolaides said.
He said that a patchwork approach to deciding what titles are appropriate in provincial school libraries has led to books with “graphic sexual content” being made available to students. “These materials contain nudity and graphic, explicit depictions of sexual acts and images including oral sex,” he said.
Resource materials handed out to the media in advance of Monday’s news conference include spreads from four graphic novels the provincial government says exemplify the kind of inappropriate sexual content they are concerned about. The books, all by American authors, are Fun Home by Alison Bechdel; Flamer by Mike Curato; Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe; and Blankets by Craig Thompson.
Three of the four graphic novels highlighted by the Alberta government feature LGBTQ+ characters and themes; the fourth, Thompson’s Blankets, is an autobiographical coming-of-age story that features the sexual abuse of the author and his brother at the hands of a babysitter and Thompson’s experiences at an Evangelical Bible camp.
Reached for comment by the Globe and Mail, Thompson pointed out that the dialogue the Alberta government had quoted as examples of sexually explicit material was taken out of context and questioned why his book was being singled out. “It’s a very slippery slope that this is happening. Because if the Bible were to be illustrated, it would certainly be an X-rated book,” he said.
In a joint statement from the Edmonton and Calgary school boards, trustees said the province’s move came as a “complete surprise.” While they have pulled the four books from school library shelves pending review, they also claim to have procedures in place to vet titles and to allow for parental complaints over content. “Both our divisions follow established, rigorous processes to ensure that library resources are age-appropriate and relevant for students,” the statement reads.
As part of the Alberta government’s policy development, which they intend to have completed and ready to implement for school year 2025–26, they are engaging in a public consultation process that includes a survey for Albertans to fill out. The survey asks respondents to identify what they think age-appropriate content means and who should decide what qualifies as age-appropriate material for school libraries. The question “How do you think school libraries should handle materials with sexually explicit content?” offers four possible responses ranging from “Keep them available to all students” to “Remove them entirely.”
Dennis MacNeill, president of the Public School Boards’ Association of Alberta, is quoted in a media release as being supportive of the public consultation aspect of the government’s process. “While this is a very contentious issue, we are pleased that the government is consulting with Albertans prior to deciding any course of action,” he said.
For some people, the fact that the majority of titles already highlighted as sexually explicit deal with LGBTQ+ characters and themes is unsurprising. “It seems like there is no coincidence that the government’s announcement on library materials specifically singled out 2SLGBTQIA+ materials,” Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, said in a statement. “The association welcomes being included in policy decisions concerning school libraries and learning commons spaces.”
Speaking to the Globe, Curato identified what he sees as a fundamental drawback to the Alberta government’s approach. “Anything in my book that they’re banning came from my own life as a queer person,” he said. “Does that mean the experience of my fourteen-year-old self that’s in my work is not appropriate for other fourteen-year-old kids to read now?”
While similar efforts to have LGBTQ+ material removed from school libraries in the U.S. has been rampant in recent years, such purges have flown largely under the radar in Canada. Which does not mean they have not been happening. In 2023, the Waterloo Catholic District School Board in Ontario moved four LGBTQ-oriented titles nominated for the Forest of Reading awards to restrictive “professional shelves” because of material that was deemed age-inappropriate.
Still, the fact that less is heard of this kind of restriction north of the border means that some people are caught off-guard when it does occur in the open. “I’m shocked this is happening in Canada,” Curato told the Globe.
