Alberta enters its book banning era

Spare me the 'will someone please think of the children' claptrap.

Alberta minister of education Demetrios Nicolaides announces the government’s plans to ban certain 2SLGBTQ+ books from school libraries. (Screenshot/YouTube)

Despite there being an embargoed Monday morning press conference, the Calgary Herald broke the news that Alberta’s government is appointing itself the ultimate arbiter of which books can be read at which age, with Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides granting the Postmedia paper an interview over the weekend.

Nicolaides told the Herald that the “extremely graphic and age-inappropriate material” was brought to his attention by concerned parents whose children are enrolled in Calgary and Edmonton public schools, who for some reason took their concerns to the provincial government, rather than their local school boards.

“I sat down with the parents, and they proceeded to show me files with multiple examples of what I would describe as being incredibly inappropriate passages,” the minister said, adding that he was “completely shocked and taken aback.”

These books were found at both K-9 and high schools. Nicolaides said he cannot “cannot think of any rationale or reason why they should be available in a school for a child.”

One rationale might be that since girls can begin going through puberty as early as Grade 4, and boys in Grade 5, they might want to start learning about their burgeoning sexuality from the library.

That would especially be true of students whose parents haven’t explicitly opted in for sex ed class, which they’re now required to do, whether due to ideological opposition or simple absentmindedness.

Make no mistake. This policy has nothing to do with protecting children. It’s a fundamentally authoritarian gesture aimed at appeasing the prudish sensibilities, cultural conservatism and/or outright bigotry of certain overbearing parents.

"Albertans deserve to know what’s really being shown to children in some of our K-9 schools," Premier Danielle Smith said on Twitter in her characteristically conspiratorial tone.

“Parents are right to be upset, as many of our kids are being exposed to age inappropriate material that strips away their innocence at far too young an age.”

This has nothing to do with banning books, the premier insists, but “protecting kids from graphic, sexually explicit content that has no place in a classroom.”

So it’s not a book ban, but certain books must have “no place in a classroom.” All to protect the children, naturally.

---

Let’s concede, for argument’s sake, that these books will corrupt the minds of youth who read them, creating a generation of nymphomaniacs. Why is it the province’s purview to determine which books are appropriate at which age? Should that decision not be left up to educators?

The province already has guidelines in place on the propriety of certain materials for school libraries, with school boards setting their own policies. But Nicolaides says that now is the time for the province to “put some more guardrails in place.”

To do so, the government launched a two-week online survey that will inform their policy, which will be in place by September.

You could make the case that maybe the province should have consistent standards that are applied across all school districts—local decision making be damned—but it’s hard not to see this development as part of a broader constellation of UCP policies ripped straight out of the U.S. culture wars, particularly as they pertain to trans rights.

And this book banning cannot be considered apart from the UCP’s assault on 2SLGBT+ rights.

The province gave examples of four graphic novels it claimed included “sexually explicit content,” all of which happen to be 2SLGBTQ+ themed—Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe; Fun Home by Alison Bechdel; Blankets by Craig Thompson; and Flamer by Mike Curato.

In a press release, the government printed select quotes from each book that are sexual in nature, with a link to the reprinted panels in question for each book.

“Content warning: this document contains graphic content that may be disturbing to viewers and is not appropriate for young viewers. Viewer discretion is advised,” the news release hilariously reads.

Speaking of age inappropriateness, are there any parents regularly showing their kids Government of Alberta news releases? That strikes me as a mild form of child abuse.

---

Winnipeg-based Globe and Mail reporter Temur Durrani contacted the authors of all four books, who say the government is taking their work out of context.

Oregon-based Blankets author Thompson told the Globe that his book is a coming-of-age autobiography, he said, that recalls his own childhood in an evangelical Christian family.

“There is nothing sexual in there,” he said. The excerpts referenced in the government news release are a combination of words from the mouths of bullies insulting the protagonist and from a Christian fundamentalist at the character’s church.

Thompson called this development a “slippery slope,” noting that “if the Bible were to be illustrated, it would certainly be an X-rated book.”

“Protecting the right to read is protecting the right to exist,” said Curato, the Massachusetts-based illustrator of Flamer.

“Anything in my book that they’re banning came from my own life as a queer person. Does that mean the experience of my 14-year-old self that’s in my work is not appropriate for other 14-year-old kids to read now? I’m shocked this is happening in Canada,” Curato added.

He noted that book banning is “morphing into a way in which queer and trans people can be removed from every other aspect of our society.”

And what starts with the 2SLGBTQ+ community won’t end with the 2SLGBTQ+ community.

If you look to the States, you can see where this literary puritanism leads. In 2022, McMinn County School Board in Tennessee banned Art Spiegelman’s Maus—a masterpiece of Holocaust literature—from its Grade 8 curriculum due to a partially nude woman who was depicted as a mouse.

No matter how the government spins this, no matter how many fake consultations it engages in to develop its predetermined policy, the UCP and Danielle Smith are going over the heads of local authorities to ban certain books from certain libraries.

While Public School Boards Association of Alberta president Dennis MacNeal foolishly agreed to give his imprimatur to the UCP’s approach to this “very contentious issue,” the public school boards in Edmonton and Calgary issued a joint statement saying the UCP’s announcement came as a “complete surprise.”

“Both our divisions follow established, rigorous processes to ensure that library resources are age appropriate and relevant for students," said the trustees in a joint statement,” they wrote, as per the Canadian Press.

The trustees emphasized that there are “established, rigorous processes” in place for parents to object to age-inappropriate books in their libraries.

Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid has some thoughts on which books children should be allowed to access, which he called “an emotional subject for some parents, especially in rural Alberta,” even though the books were strictly in Edmonton and Calgary schools.

Braid insists the government couldn’t possibly be driven be anti-2SLGBT+ animus, since at his May 26 presser Nicolaides didn’t “once mention LGBTQ or transgender [people].”

“In short, he did not inflame feelings against any group. Nor did he advocate a ban on other material relating to gay and trans people,” he added.

Yet it’s hard to believe that it’s just a coincidence that all four books dealt with 2SLGBTQ+ themes.

Praising the UCP’s “mild approach” to book banning, Braid correctly notes that the government will likely “face criticism from some in the UCP base who don’t think he goes nearly far enough.”

Braid concludes by acknowledging that the government has opened “the door to censorship just a crack. And that’s where it has to stop.”

But given the reality that the UCP base will see this policy as a starting point, as Braid himself conceded, there’s every reason to believe it will push for more censorship of 2SLGBTQ+ content.

And if Premier Smith believes her political survival depends on it, she will find a way to do as she’s told while claiming she’s doing nothing of that sort.