CFE Blog

In a recent column in the Toronto Star, Tonda MacCharles highlighted what she saw as an inconsistency between the argument currently being made before the Supreme Court of Canada in the Bill 21 case, that governments should remain neutral in religious matters, and the assertion by Prime Minister Carney in a recent speech that “religious values can and should frame how politicians act”.&nbsp

What makes you feel unsafe? Do you feel threatened by a book – or by a picture in a book? Recently a children’s book in Manitoba was temporarily removed from a school division’s library shelves because some adults said it made them feel unsafe. They had no problem with the text which is a simple story of a child helping her grandmother prepare a special meal for the family.

Freedom to Read Week 2026 (February 22–28) is an occasion for reflection and for recognition at a time of increased demands for censorship. Across Canada, library leadership, librarians, paraprofessional staff, and library trustees have spent the past year doing the essential work that intellectual freedom depends on—often under scrutiny, and always in service of the public good.

The interests at stake in a recent investigation[1] by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (the “OPC”) can be evoked in two imaginative exercises. First, how would you feel if you had been accused of a crime, the charge had been stayed many years ago, but news articles about the incident were still easily accessible to anyone who typed your name into a search engine?

There is little doubt that social media has introduced many kinds of challenges to the lives of young people. Whether we chose to or not, most of us have come upon some nasty stuff on the internet. Australia has led what will likely be an international rush to regulate kids’ access to social media. Should we applaud this new measure or should we worry about it?

In May 2025, Alberta’s Minister of Education issued Ministerial Order 030/2025, setting province-wide rules governing access to literary materials in K–12 schools. While presented as a child-protection measure, a subsequent clarification made clear that the order applies not only to school libraries, but to entire school environments—including classrooms, supplementary reading, and voluntary access spaces.