Freedom to Read Week<\/a>, which was started decades ago to challenge literary censorship and its impact on Canadian writing.\u00a0<\/p>\nThis year it takes place Feb. 22-28 and includes several events at Calgary public libraries.<\/p>\n
The organizers of the cancelled event, the Writers\u2019 Union of Canada and Writers\u2019 Guild of Alberta, and panellists say they were surprised and disappointed by the legion\u2019s reaction.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was in shock. What’s happening here? He’s cancelling an event that’s about intellectual freedom and speaking out against censorship. This isn’t making sense to me,\u201d said Tracy Dawson, one of the scheduled panellists, who is an author and University of Calgary writer-in-residence.<\/p>\n
Elizabeth Haynes, the regional representative for the Writers\u2019 Union of Canada, questions where the legion draws the line as to whether something is political.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand, OK, they don’t want to be political. On the other hand, did our soldiers not fight for freedoms and democracy? \u201d wondered Haynes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat about freedom of speech?\u201d<\/p>\n
According to social media posts, the legion has previously cancelled events booked by separatist organizations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Finding an alternative venue\u00a0<\/p>\n
Organizers say they were additionally mystified by the legion\u2019s alternative venue suggestion.\u00a0In an email, the legion encouraged them to try the nearby Centre for Sexuality, which\u00a0 \u201caligns closely with advocacy initiatives similar to yours.\u201d<\/p>\n
That prompted the writers groups and panellists to question the legion\u2019s motives for cancelling the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was absolutely nothing in our description that would suggest we should be at the Centre for Sexuality,\u201d said John Degen, CEO of the Writers\u2019 Union of Canada.<\/p>\n
He wonders if the decision was in\u00a0response to one of the panellist\u2019s books. Dawson\u2019s book is called Let Me Be Frank: A Book about Women Who Dressed Like Men to Do Shit They Weren’t Supposed to Do.<\/p>\n
In\u00a0an email to CBC News, the legion clarified its alternative venue suggestion, saying \u201cthe centre deals directly with the main topic of books being removed by the province.\u201d<\/p>\n
Early this year, a ministerial order took effect requiring schools in Alberta remove any material with sexually graphic images (excluding anatomy books) and adopt new policies on managing the titles they carry.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1771680851_417_default.jpg\")
Organizer Elizabeth Haynes holds up a poster containing new venue information for the event on Feb. 23. (Submitted by Elizabeth Haynes)<\/p>\n
The event\u2019s moderator says the panel wasn\u2019t organized in response to the Alberta government\u2019s decision; rather, Rosemary Griebel says it is meant to raise awareness about censorship and book bans more broadly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that this was suddenly dreamed up to speak out against the current government,” said Griebel. \u201cIt\u2019s a well-established program just to confirm our right to read what we want.\u201d<\/p>\n
The writers\u2019 groups say they had to scramble last minute to find another venue. Now, the discussion is being help at C-Space in Marda Loop on Feb. 23.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490001,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-490000","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-calgary","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-calgary","10":"tag-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=490000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Text](\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/a\/assets\/texttospeech.svg\")
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