Alberta is going back to the drawing board with its policy for school library books after the Edmonton Public School Board released a list of 200 books it intended to remove to comply with the directive.
Minister of Education Demetrios Nicolaides, in an email on Sept. 2, informed school boards throughout the province that they should cease work to implement the policy as he would be making revisions to it.
"I will be revising the order immediately to ensure that our classic literary works remain in school libraries," said Demetrios, in a post to social media platform X.
The policy was set to begin in October with full implementation set for Jan. 1, 2026. It was being implemented to remove books with pornographic images and other age-inappropriate books from school shelves.
In a social media post of her own, Premier Danielle Smith clearly stated that the intent of the policy was to "get pornographic images out of school libraries" and "leave the classics on the shelves."
"We all know the difference," said Smith. "Let's not play any more games in implementing this policy for our kids."
Leader of the opposition NDP, Naheed Nenshi, didn't mince words either.
"Yet again, an attempt by the UCP to distract from their horrific record has backfired," said Nenshi in an email statement. "They’re still making it up as they go along, leaping from crisis to crisis. We have the lowest funding per student in the country. The teachers are about to go on strike. Class sizes have never been larger."
Nenshi didn't disagree with the United Conservative Party's stance that books should be age-appropriate.
"Of course, material must be age-appropriate," said Nenshi. "No one disagrees with that. But instead of funding teacher-librarians and creating common sense guidelines, they wrote a poorly thought-out ministerial order, that the Minister himself didn’t understand when he introduced it."
Nenshi then goes on to criticize the province's new requirement that parents of girls registering in sports need to verify that their daughters were born female.
"And what does Premier Smith think is important? Asking girls (not boys) to prove their sex and banning books," said Nenshi. "Yet again, their own incompetence and inability to manage complex files has led to wasted time, wasted money, and unneeded stress. Albertans deserve better."
Public Interest Alberta added they were happy to see the province reverse course on the ban.
“Access to education is both a right and a privilege, and Albertans must recognize it as the foundation for strengthening our province," said Executive Director Bradley Lafortune.
"Limiting what students can read does nothing to protect our future, it only weakens our capacity to think critically, innovate, and lead. History shows us who else has banned books, and it is not a list that inspires confidence. In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, women are forbidden to read at all, a chilling reminder of what happens when those in power decide knowledge is dangerous. Alberta should be building classrooms that empower, not echoing dystopias that strip people of their right to learn.
