Socially conservative “parents’ rights” groups that have emerged as powerfully political lobbying groups in the US are quickly gaining ground in Canada, academics and free speech advocates say, after two such groups claimed they had persuaded Alberta to institute a sweeping public school book ban.
Alberta recently directed schools to purge library books from shelves that fit its definition of “explicit sexual content” by 1 October. If the policy is applied precisely as outlined, a host of books face being purged, including George Orwell’s 1984 due to passages in the text that discuss sexual intercourse and rape.
Academics and researchers who examine censorship say the policy specifically targets books that affirm LGBTQ+ identities – which they say is the goal of rightwing parents’ groups.
“They’d been working on the government for months to get them to do this,” said James Turk, the director of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University.
Turk says he and his colleagues are following more than 25 socially conservative groups across Canada that have similar mandates.
Turk pointed to the Miramichi Freedom Warriors, a New Brunswick-based group, and Concerned Citizens Canada based in Manitoba, which have also been demanding that books that positively represent queer communities be removed from public libraries and schools.
Many of these groups emerged as anti-vax groups during the Covid-19 pandemic, and then used social media to widen their scope of causes, including strict parental oversight.
“It’s a major initiative right now that grows out of this notion that ‘our kids are our property’,” he said. “It’s a very backward-looking, reactionary way of understanding how children learn.”
Lobbying by some parents’ groups has also prompted Alberta to institute “opt-in” sex education in fall 2024, instead of “opt-out”, which means parents must now actively sign their children up for those classes.
In June, following advocating from the Alberta Parents’ Union, Alberta also introduced new rules that require all presentations focussing on gender identity and sexuality to be vetted by the provincial government.
The two groups in Alberta, Action4Canada and Parents for Choice in Education (PCE), have taken credit for precipitating the province’s book ban. The Alberta government confirmed it had met with PCE to hear their views, as reported by the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IFJ), a Canadian non-profit newsroom.
The Alberta government defines “explicit sexual content” in its policy as “content containing a detailed and clear depiction of a sexual act”. Students from kindergarten to grade 12 cannot access any “content” in a school library that meets this definition.
PCE sent an email to its followers after the ban came down, thanking them for their efforts in contacting government officials about “graphic” books, as reported by the IFJ.
Alberta has not provided a list of specific books to remove, saying instead that schools must apply their new policy and toss books that do not fit their standards.
But the province has identified four graphic novels as examples of books to be culled: Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, Blankets by Craig Thompson and Flamer by Mike Curato.
All four are globally acclaimed coming-of-age stories about teenage life and young adulthood. Three of the books focus on stories that represent the LGBTQ+ community. PCE and Action4Canada also claim they alerted Alberta about the four books.
Alberta’s education minister Demetrios Nicolaides and other provincial officials have insisted they are not looking to erase queer stories from school shelves, but Action4Canada and PCE openly express disdain for the LGBTQ+ community.
Ira Wells, an associate professor of literature at the University of Toronto and author of the book On Book Banning, said Alberta’s ban will likely cause a purge of marginalized voices from school libraries.
“What we are seeing in Alberta is as extreme as we’ve seen in the southern United States and other centers of book banning,” he said.
Wells warned that the move set a dangerous precedent for the province and could have wider effects on the country.
Canada’s provinces and territories each manage their own education system. But Wells argued that the issue of book bans was so concerning that the country’s federal government should consider intervention, through an order that would ensure book selection is based on an educator’s professional training and not on personal beliefs.
“Anti-book banning legislation is something that the federal Liberals should absolutely be exploring,” he said.
