Province hits the brakes on school library order

By Lethbridge Herald on September 3, 2025.

AlejandraPulido Guzman
Lethbridge Herald

School Divisions across the province received an email asking for a pause in implementing efforts outlined in the Ministerial Order (#30/2025), including removing materials containing depictions of explicit sexual content from school libraries until further notice.

In the email, school divisions are advised that more information will be provided as soon as possible.

In a statement sent to the Herald, Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides said this happened after becoming aware of a list of over 200 books that the Edmonton public school division intended to remove off their library shelves. 

“I will be revising the order immediately to ensure that our classic literary works remain in school libraries, while books with graphic pornographic images, such as those depicted below, do not end up in the hands of children,” said Nicolaides. 

He was referring to images included in the document  https://www.alberta.ca/system/files/ec-examples-of-sexual-content-in-school-libraries.pdf which showcases images and excerpts from books including “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, “Fun Home” by Alison Bechdel, “Blankets” by Craig Thompson, and “Flamer” by Mike Curato. 

Premier Danielle Smith took to social media to comment on the Edmonton Public School reaction to the ministerial order on Tuesday afternoon, after the pause was issued. 

“I’m going to be more explicit than usual so there is no misunderstanding this policy: 1. Get graphic pornographic images out of school libraries, 2. Leave the classics the shelves and 3. We all know the difference between the items in 1 and 2. Let’s not play any more games in implementing this policy for our kids,” posted Smith. 

“It’s images that we’re concerned about, graphic images,” Smith said Tuesday at an unrelated news conference in Medicine Hat.

“We were hoping that the school boards would be able to identify those on their own and work with us to try to make sure that pornographic images are not being shown to young children.”

Smith accused the Edmonton public school division Tuesday of purposely misunderstanding the government’s order. 

“We are not trying to remove classics of literature,” Smith said. “What we are trying to remove is graphic images that young children should not be having a look at.

“What I would like for the school boards to say is: ‘We agree! Children shouldn’t see pornographic images. We’ll work with you on that.’ And that’s what I hope the spirit going forward will be.”

Alberta Teachers’ Association president Jason Schilling issued a statement Tuesday afternoon about the government’s pause saying that Nicolaides’ decision 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.”

As they prepared for the new school year, many teachers were also burdened with removing thousands of books to comply with the government’s now-defunct Oct. 1 deadline.

“We urge the government to stop playing games with teachers and students and put a full stop to policing school library materials.”

Alberta opposition leader Naheed Nenshi also reacted to the pause Tuesday afternoon during a virtual press conference, by saying that the UCP government is trying to distract Albertans from its failures in education.

“We’re the richest province, but we have the lowest per student funding,” said Nenshi. “Class sizes have never been larger. The teachers are likely to go on strikes and instead of solving any of these problems, they try to distract.”

He also said that Smith’s reaction to the way the book ban was interpreted was typical of her, by not apologizing but instead blaming others. 

“People actually complied with the order and now we have the premier saying ‘oh oops, that’s not what we meant, you should’ve read my min instead,’ come on,” said Nenshi. 

He said that the real question is what the UCP expected to happen with the ministerial order, which must be enforced by school divisions and teachers.

“And today they could’ve shown a bit of grace and say, hey look we screwed up, we are going to fix this, we are sorry for the wasted time, wasted money and the undue stress on people during an already stressful time,” said Nenshi. “Instead, they blame others because that’s what they do.”

With CP files from Jack Farrell and Lisa Johnson.

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Chmie

18 hours ago

This govt doesn’t have a clue what is acceptable policy to the majority of Albertans. Smith hears a complaint from her right wing supporters and then introduces a bill trying to keep their support. Then the blowback causes her to rescind that policy while claiming it was misinterpreted or she wasn’t aware of it. This band of misfits shouldn’t be governing our province.

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