Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has acknowledged the Edmonton school division was too heavy handed in crafting its list of banned books.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
The Alberta government is pausing its controversial order for the removal of books deemed sexually explicit from school libraries, a retreat that Premier Danielle Smith vowed would be short-lived as the province continues to push policies around sexuality and gender into the classroom.
As of this month, new amendments to the Education Act dictate that ministerial approval is required before learning resources related to gender identity, sexual orientation or human sexuality are presented in schools.
While teachers in Alberta started a new school year this week, the difficulty of interpreting and following the new measures became a crucial concern.
The Edmonton Public School Board verified last Friday a list of more than 200 books it would need to remove under the new measures – including classics such as The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Color Purple by Alice Walker and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.
Ms. Atwood reacted with several quips on social media and her blog over the past weekend, each of which were shared by thousands of people across the world. One of her remarks, viewed by more than a million people, included a satirical short story in which she compared the Premier to one of the characters in her highly regarded novel.
“The Handmaid’s Tale came true and Danielle Smith found herself with a nice new blue dress but no job,” she wrote, referring to the wives of commanders in her book, which symbolizes restrictive and totalitarian societies.
Margaret Atwood responds to Alberta book ban with satirical short story
On Tuesday, in a brief e-mail to school boards and divisions, Alberta’s Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides instructed officials to pause any restrictions on books “until further notice,” noting more information will be provided in the coming days.
“At this time, I ask that school authorities also pause the development and distribution of lists of school library materials,” Mr. Nicolaides wrote in the e-mail, obtained by The Globe and Mail.
But at an unrelated event in Cypress County, Alta., Ms. Smith said the pause will only last for a short period until the ministerial order is rewritten. “The direction will be to take books with pornographic images out of the libraries and to leave the classics alone,” she told reporters.
“We are hoping that the school boards understand what it is that we’re trying to achieve.”
The book restrictions have come to a head under the shadow of a labour dispute in Alberta, as contract negotiations between the teachers’ union and the province’s bargaining team have reached an impasse.
As of late Tuesday, the prospect of a teachers’ strike or a lockout is continuing to loom just as school begins. Both the bargaining team and the union told The Globe that talks have broken off since last week after teachers rejected the proposal for a 12-per-cent salary increase over four years.
The age-appropriateness of books in school libraries has become an increasingly politicized issue over the last few years. It is part of a broader social movement, especially in the United States, where organized activism has attempted to ban subjects in school related to gender identity, sexual orientation or race.
Since she became Premier in 2022, Ms. Smith’s government has enacted several measures intended to be guardrails for youth in Alberta. A series of recent legislation from her United Conservative Party have limited gender-affirming treatment for transgender youth and affected their participation in sports.
As part of the new amendments to the Education Act, parents must opt in before students under 16 are taught about gender identity, sexual orientation or human sexuality, while students’ preferred pronouns and names cannot be used until guardians are notified and have consented.
Earlier this summer, Mr. Nicolaides also imposed an Oct. 1 deadline for schools to remove any material considered explicit sexual content by the province. Stressing that schools maintained “zero standards” to select appropriate content, the minister required boards to create or update their policies to meet the province’s new standards.
However, when asked to clarify, Mr. Nicolaides repeatedly declined to confirm a definitive list of books that would have to be banned in libraries. He only provided four examples of graphic novels, each of which depict coming-of-age or LGBTQ subjects, and whose authors have told The Globe that their work has been taken out of context.
On Friday, after the Edmonton Public School Board verified the list of books it would have to remove under the new measures, Ms. Smith said it was performing “vicious compliance” with the list. If schools need the province to “hold their hand through the process to identify what kind of materials are appropriate,” her government would do so, Ms. Smith said.
On Tuesday, Ms. Smith said she hadn’t read Ms. Atwood’s 163-word story, but she encourages the author to “look at the graphic images” from the four examples that she and Mr. Nicolaides had previously provided.
“There has been some willful and purposeful misrepresentation and misunderstanding of the policy,” she said.
Naheed Nenshi, Leader of Alberta’s New Democrats, described Tuesday’s pause as a distraction from Ms. Smith’s party being backfired: “They wrote a poorly thought-out ministerial order, that the Minister himself didn’t understand when he introduced it. What did they think would happen?” he said in a statement.
Jason Schilling, president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association, said the government’s decision to pause the implementation of its book ban has turned into “an ill-timed game of Red Light, Green Light.”
“Today, the Education Minister says teachers should no longer take steps to cull or curate their libraries – red light. Tomorrow, it is possible that teachers could be asked once again to add this task back onto their already overflowing plates – green light.”
Joanne Anderson, a spokesperson for the Calgary Board of Education, said its schools are now in a state of limbo. The board has been “in the process of reviewing more than half a million individual book titles,” she said in a statement. “We are instructing schools to pause these efforts while we await further direction.”
Edmonton Board chair Julie Kusiek said she is grateful for the pause after “concerns raised by parents, students, educators and the community” about the Education Minister’s order. Despite the Premier’s remarks about their list of banned books, Ms. Kusiek said her board “remains committed to keeping lines of communication open” with her government.
Separately, on Tuesday, Egale Canada and the Skipping Stone Scholarship Foundation launched a constitutional challenge against Alberta, arguing that the government’s new rules on preferred pronouns and names in schools pose significant issues for the rights, safety and inclusion of LGBTQ students.
“It forces gender diverse young people to make a cruel and unfair choice between being outed to their parents by the government and being misgendered and deadnamed,” the legal filing noted.
Ms. Smith did not directly address questions about the lawsuit. Garrett Koehler, spokesperson for Mr. Nicolaides, also declined to comment, stating it would be “inappropriate” as the matter is before the courts.