Librarians and Educators Should Decide Books for School Libraries, Not Politicians

On Monday, May 26th, 2025, Alberta Minister of Education Demetrios Nicolaides announced that the government was bringing in new rules to ensure only "age-appropriate" books are available in school libraries in the province. The announcement focused on four books as examples of inappropriate books: Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Mike Curato’s Flamer, Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer, and Craig Thompson’s Blankets – all award-winning books for young adults.

The announcement came as a surprise to the Alberta Teacher’s Association (ATA) and the two largest districts directly affected by the announcement, Calgary and Edmonton, who quickly responded to the announcement. Canadian School Libraries, the Canadian Federation of Library Associations, the Library Association of Alberta, and the Ontario Library Association/Ontario School Library Association also published responses. Other interested groups, such as the Centre for Free Expression, the Canadian Publishing Industry, Pen Canada, and pflag Canada expressed concerns as to how the Ministry of Education gathered their information and which groups he had consulted before the press release. 

No one knowledgeable about school library collections, content and district policies on book challenges was contacted to respond to the concerns from the Ministry of Education before their press release. 

What are the challenge policies in school districts?

Teacher librarians are well versed in how they manage their collections. In a course in the Teacher Librarianship Diploma Program at the University of British Columbia (UBC), students learn about issues such as policies and policy-making, intellectual freedom and censorship, and the role of curriculum support and recreational reading in library learning commons. 

In the course, future teacher librarians learn about school library policy and how it should reflect the goals, needs, and mission of their library learning commons, their school as a whole, and their school district. Some library learning commons policies may be directly based on district-level policy such as the two districts involved in the Education Minister’s press release.

Edmonton School Board Trustees’ and the Calgary Board of Education’s joint Statement on the provincial announcement about library resources made clear: 

“Both divisions’ practices are guided by principles such as those outlined in the Foundations for School Library Learning Commons in Canada: A Framework for Success (Canadian School Libraries, 2023). We recognize that coming-of-age books, often available for students to choose independently, have historically been topics of discussion.” 

The Foundations for School Library Learning Commons in Canada has clear guidelines on Reconsideration Procedures:

“It is very important to be clear that the role of the reconsideration procedure is not to assess the resource in question according to the values of the challenger. Rather, concerns are considered on the basis of compliance with the principles for selecting and using resources as represented by the selection guideline document. In the formal procedure, the person or persons requesting reconsideration must demonstrate how the resource in question fails to comply with these established guidelines.”

As part of the policy-making information taught in the Diploma and Certificate Program in teacher librarianship, teacher librarians learn how to prepare a ‘Reconsideration of Library Learning Commons Resources’ document. The document refers to a formal process where a parent, guardian or outside groups express a concern about a library resource and requests its review. The reconsideration of the resource or reading material involves a committee that would include the teacher librarian, the district teacher librarian, teachers and other teaching specialists as needed, depending on the resource.  As a group, they would evaluate the resource in light of the library's selection policies and the principles of intellectual freedom. The reconsideration process aims to provide a structured way to address concerns and ensure that the decisions on the resources and reading material are made based on the provincial curriculum as well as thoughtfully and fairly.

In most cases in library learning commons across the country, the process goes well and other parents, guardians, and the general public may or may not hear about the process. Problems arise when the “Reconsideration of Library Learning Commons Resources” document is by-passed by parents, guardians or third parties with a vested interest in the removal of the item not just in one school but across the district.

Two recent examples where the reconsideration process wasn’t followed:

One occurred in Ottawa in 2019 – After a parent requested the book Drama be removed from the learning commons at their child’s school but declined to follow the normal process for a book challenge, they went to the district offices with their request. The district directed all the schools to remove the offending book. After the issue was published in the press, the book remained in place. 

The second occurred in Durham in 2022 - A group of First Nations parents requested the book The Great Bear(The Misewa Saga, Book 2) by First Nations author David Robertson, and several other books, be removed from the learning commons throughout the district. The process for reconsideration wasn’t followed, even though the Durham District School Board had one of the most elaborate policies in place to deal with challenges in library learning commons. The decision to remove the books from all the library learning commons was made by one person at the district. After the issue was published in the press across the country, the Board directed that the books be returned. 

The process and policies in place across Canada demonstrate that the system works. But the process only works well if there are teacher librarians in place. The Alberta Teacher’s Association announced in 2024 that they had disbanded the Alberta School Learning Commons Council (ASLC) because they failed to meet the threshold of 100 members. If the Minister of Education is concerned about resources in the library learning commons in Alberta, there should be appropriate funding to have a teacher librarian in each school in the province.

It should be noted that upon further investigation by CTV News, no one from the Ministry of Education investigated who had accessed the books or how often they were borrowed. The Minister agreed that no data was accumulated before he spoke to the press on May 26th.

In the many examples of book challenges taught in library and teacher librarian programs in Canada, the case study of the Alberta Ministry of Education will be one that will encompass a new chapter to add to the content on policies and policy-making, intellectual freedom and censorship. 

The primary concern of the actions by the Alberta Minister of Education is that he received and acted on information from two groups who had different agendas than one simply related to the content and age appropriateness of four books as presented on May 26th.

Who are the groups that contacted the Ministry of Education?

The first group was Action4Canada, which is a group not unknown to the library community in Canada. It has had long standing interactions with public libraries and library learning commons as they started sending a Notice of Liability in 2022 which referred to “Facilitating in Exposure of Minors to Sexually Explicit Materials, Activities and/or events through individuals.” The letter is divided into three sections (an explanation of notice, the laws included in the email, and the request. Their request was very specific and targeted:

“The LGBTQ SOGI 123/Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) learning resource, embedded into the provincial educational curriculum across Canada, has become an avenue to expose minors to sexually explicit, pornographic and inappropriate learning resources, activities and/or events. Children are being indoctrinated and having their innocence exploited through this learning resource, which is based on an unscientific, radical ideology.”

The authors of The Notice of Liability offered an overview of Section 163.1 (1) of the criminal code of Canada that includes ‘A Definition of Child Pornography’, ‘What Child Pornography means’, ‘Making Child Pornography, Distribution, etc. of Child Pornography’, and ‘Possession of Child Pornography’.

Also included was the Criminal Code Section 152 which describes offences related to sexual counselling of a minor, and the definition of the Canadian Center for Child Protection related to non-contact sexual abuse.

The Canadian Federation of Library Associations Intellectual Freedom Committee forwarded the document to be examined by lawyers working with the Centre for Free Expression and sent out a document explaining how the Notice of Liability should be interpreted by the library community:

The document:

• has no legal value with regards to its claims of the recipient breaking the law
• does not replace processes that the library already has in place to facilitate challenges to library materials, such as a Request for Reconsideration form
• is flawed and misleading. Apart from the inaccuracies noted above, it refers to schools throughout yet has been sent to public libraries, and references SOGI 123 which is restricted to the British Columbia and Alberta curricula.
• The Notice appears to be an intimidation tactic created for widespread use in an organized campaign but may also be viewed as an individual library patron expressing their disapproval. Libraries may wish to inform the patron of existing policies and procedures by which patrons can request a formal review of a specific item in the collection, noting that a separate form must be completed for each item.

CTV News has described Action4Canada as a group that “promotes deeply conspiratorial beliefs, claiming the Canadian government and education system have been “infiltrated by radical LGBTQ activists” and that SOGI education and sexually explicit books are part of a “global agenda” to sexualize children, interfere with parental rights, eliminate the natural family and normalize pedophilia.”

Action4Canada posted on its website a thank you note to the Minister of Education in Alberta for responding to their concerns.

It is important to note that none of the books in the Sexual Orientation Gender Identity Program (SOGI) programs in Canadian provinces, as referred to by Action4Canada and other groups or any of the four titles mentioned by the Minister of Education of Alberta, would pass the litmus test of obscene material based on its legal definition in Canada.  

The second group, Parents for Choice in Education (PCE) is an Alberta-based parental rights group that, in similar fashion as Action for Canada, has expressed concerns with the SOGI curriculum and content as well as other provincial policies related to LGBTQia2s+ in schools. 

Other groups such as Campaign Life Coalition have been supportive of the Ministry of Education initiative.

The library community and writers’ associations in Canada are very concerned that Action4Canada and PCE have claimed that this is a win for their organizations in their campaigns against their perceived ideological indoctrination by the LGBTQia2s+ community in schools. 

The library community has been well aware of these groups and, with information sent out to all the library and school library associations in Canada as well university and college library programs, know how to deal with these attempts at book banning. Action4Canada and PCE have taken a page from Moms for Liberty in the US and taken their concerns directly to politicians. 

At the moment, the focus by the Government of Alberta is on four titles, but both Action4Canada and PCE seek to eliminate all the SOGI book choices for students and teachers, even though they have been recommended by Ministry of Educations. The presumption is, that once the Alberta government has introduced its new policy for reading materials, that the effort will be renewed to continue removing LGBTQia2s+ books associated with the SOGI list. 

Where does this process end up?

In the last two decades, all manner of books have been challenged by parent groups. 

Fifteen years ago, a small group of conservative parents in Western Canada presented a list of book genres they requested be removed from the library learning commons. They included art books, photography books, dark, horror or evil books, and books that deal with teenage lust or contain recurring swearing. This included the Harry Potter and Twilight series. 

There are so many different types of genres and book banning is a constant issue. The Centre for Free Expression has been recording book challenges across Canada and the database increases every year. In Texas school districts, 625 books have been added to a list of banned books for school libraries. Is this where we are heading in Alberta schools?

Democratic and Charter Rights

Albertans, as are all Canadians, value their democratic and charter rights and hope that book challenges can be resolved to the satisfaction of all concerned but, the fact is, as noted above, individuals and groups have sought to limit access to the public in general and children specifically to books in our library learning commons that don’t fit their own perspectives and/or beliefs. It would be in the best interest of all parties to remember the ruling of Chamberlain v. Surrey District School Board No. 36 [2002] 4 S.C.R. 710, 2002 SCC 86 before proceeding to create new regulations for access to books in Alberta schools.

Chamberlain v. Surrey District School Board No. 36 [2002] 4 S.C.R. 710, 2002 SCC 86 

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in the 7-2 ruling that ”parental views, however important, cannot override the imperative placed upon the British Columbia public schools to mirror diversity of the community and teach tolerance and understanding of difference.”

The Chief Justice repeatedly stressed the importance of a secular school board to avoid caving in to pressure from religious parents to the point of excluding the values of other members of the community.

Chief Justice McLachlin dismissed the board’s concerns that children would be confused or misled by classroom information about same-sex parents, pointing out that “Tolerance is always age-appropriate, children cannot learn unless they are exposed to views that differ from those they are taught at home.” 

One small section of the 2002 Chamberlain decision had important implications for challenges in Canadian library learning commons:

“The distinction between actions and beliefs is present in Canada’s constitutional case law: persons are entitled to hold such beliefs as they choose, but their ability to act on them, whether in the private or public sphere, may be narrower.” 

The next steps

The education and library communities must be included in any discussion before new reading rules are imposed in Alberta schools. District personel have the expertise and knowledge to guide the policies of school boards and the government in the matter of reading material. They have the best educational interests of the students and are not looking at excluding any groups but rather looking at diversity and inclusion of reading materials for all the students in Alberta.