CP NewsAlert: Alberta revises school book ban policy to focus on sexual images

By Canadian Press on September 8, 2025.

EDMONTON — The Alberta government has officially revised its school book ban to state that written descriptions of sex are OK, but images and illustrations of sex are not.

Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides says visual depictions have been the government’s main concern from the start.

He says images are easy to comprehend, while some young readers might not be able to fully understand written descriptions of sexual content.

And he says the revised order ensures that literary classics, some of which include sexual content, will stay on school library shelves.

The change comes after Edmonton’s public school board put together a list of more than 200 titles it was going to take out of schools, including classics like Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” to comply with the initial ministerial order written in July.

Banning classics in Alberta brought worldwide attention, and even led Atwood herself to mock Premier Danielle Smith and her government by crafting a short story about a boy and girl who lived happily ever after practising rapacious capitalism while having kids without having sex.

More coming.

The Canadian Press