Concerns from the publishing, education, and library sectors first emerged in May 2025, when the Alberta government announced it would review “age-inappropriate” materials in school libraries. At that time, defenders of freedom of expression raised alarms that the initiative appeared to disproportionately target 2SLGBTQIA+ stories, prompting serious concerns about the policy’s true intent. When the first version of the regulation was released, librarians deliberately adopted the most expansive interpretation of the “covered books” under the law to safeguard them. This prompted a subsequent revision of the policy.
In July 2025, the Government of Alberta continued to advance with policies that threaten the freedom to read, write, and publish. This time, the government issued a mandate to remove books considered “sexually explicit” from school libraries. Once again, this action was seen as disproportionately affecting 2SLGBTQIA+ content under the pretence of regulating age-appropriate content.
The situation escalated again in September 2025 when Alberta’s revision of the policy banning “sexually explicit” books shifted the focus from written descriptions of sex to visual depictions, directly targeting graphic novels, including several award-winning graphic novels featuring 2SLGBTQIA+ stories. According to ACP, CPC, and LPG, this revision further stigmatised queer youth materials.
Alberta’s policy requiring school divisions to conduct extensive reviews of their library content resulted in multiple titles removed from the shelves. In Calgary, 44 books were removed from school shelves before students returned from winter break, while Edmont Public Schools removed 34 titles.
While these ban lists have not been publicly released by the provincial government, they have since been obtained and shared online. This review process has been resource-intensive, requiring staff to assess thousands of books using unclear and inconsistently applied criteria, and reportedly costing the school division over $43,000.
Although the government narrowed its original directive from written descriptions of sex to visual depictions of sexual acts, the fundamental problem remains unchanged. The policy continues to disproportionately target work-centred in 2SLGBTQIA+ experiences.
IPA supports ACP, CPC, and LPG’s call on the Government of Alberta to: (i) Repeal this harmful directive in its entirety; (ii) End top-down approaches to education policy that bypass meaningful consultation with educators, librarians, students, families, and publishers; and (iii) commit to developing future policies that respect and support access to a wide range of literature.