Ensuring school library materials are age-appropriate - May 26, 2025

Please welcome to the podium Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolites

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Thank you Garrett Good morning everyone Thank you for uh joining me here today I think as we can all agree school

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libraries uh spark imagination and foster a lifelong love of learning

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within our children When kids go to school uh go to school and visit their school library we want to know that

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they're finding age appropriate materials on the shelves Yet unfortunately through investigations

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conducted by my office we have found books in K to2 schools that show

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extremely age inappropriate content I'm here today to discuss an

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important initiative that Alberta's government is undertaking to ensure that materials in our school libraries

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particularly those with graphic sexual content are developmentally

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appropriate And I want to be clear right from the onset This is not a question of

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banning specific books or specific titles but rather establishing clear

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policies and guidelines for all school divisions to follow Alberta does not have a single

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provincewide standard to guide school boards in selecting school library materials that contain graphic sexual

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content So as a result different boards have taken different approaches to choosing these kinds of materials for

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their school libraries In some instances sexually explicit material has made

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their way onto school library shelves raising significant concerns for parents

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These materials contain nudity and graphic explicit depictions of sexual

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acts and images including oral sex For example in one graphic novel found

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in K9 schools in Calgary and Edmonton The book contains significant

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mature content including graphic depictions of sexual activity and

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graphic depictions of sexual nudity In another example found in our

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schools again found in K to9 schools in and high schools in

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Edmonton Another title contains mature content such as sexual nudity and sexual

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activities In another graphic novel found with students in K to9 range in

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Edmonton and Calgary The book contains mature content

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such as child molestation sexual activity and nudity in addition to other

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mature content such as alcohol use drug use profanity and other derogatory terms

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Another example again found within elementary junior high and high schools

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in Calgary and Edmonton contains sexual graphic depictions of sexual activity

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and nudity in addition to other mature content including depictions of self

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harm violence profanity and other derogatory terms I would show these images to all of you

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here and to the media but they are too graphic for a live stream media event

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These examples while graphic illustrate the kind of content that raises concerns

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amongst parents Today I'm announcing that Alberta's government will begin work to develop

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new standards to guide school boards in selecting and managing materials with

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sexual content in their school library collections And we're looking for input

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from Albertans I want to tell you a little bit more about how we're approaching these new requirements

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Having a consistent set of standards across the province will give parents reassurance that when it comes to

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materials in school libraries their children are seeing books and other material that is appropriate for their

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age We want to ensure transparency for parents so that they know what is

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available in their school library and to have a process for complaints and concerns about book materials and other

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library materials Some initial polling we have explored confirms that parents and the public

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support this general direction In May a survey found that 51% of respondents

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believe that materials containing explicit sexual depictions or descriptions of sexual acts should not

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be permitted in any library accessible to children However 94% of respondents said that

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these materials should not be available in elementary schools and 85% of parents

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said it is important that parents have a say in what materials are present in their school

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library By establishing clear consistent standards we hope to provide stronger

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guidance for our school boards and address concerns effectively

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We value and recognize the expertise of librarians administrators and other school staff By developing new standards

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we will support their important work with consistent guidance to base their

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decision on selecting and managing school library materials But first we are asking

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Albertans to provide their input by completing a short survey We will use

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that feedback to develop provincewide standards that would apply to public

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separate franophhone charter and independent schools In addition we will be engaging

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with school board trustees and other administrators to gain their insight and

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feedback as to how book selection can be more appropriately be managed

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The standards would not affect materials in public libraries in the province including 55 municipal public libraries

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located inside schools My department will work with school boards to ensure

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successful implementation by the start of the next school year The survey will

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be on alberta.ca CA And I do again warn everyone that takes a survey that images

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of the books contained within the survey may be off-putting to some

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viewers These new standards are a necessary step to ensure transparency and appropriateness of resources in our

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school libraries By addressing the concerns of parents providing clear

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guidelines and involving the community in the decision-making process we can create a more transparent and supportive

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environment for our students We're committed to working closely with our education partners to ensure these

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standards are implemented effectively and that all students feel supported in their learning environments So in

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closing I encourage anyone with concerns to provide their valuable in input via

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the survey The survey again is on alberta.ca and will be available until June 6th I am confident that together we

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can make a positive impact on the educational experience of our students in an age appropriate way Thank you and

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happy to take your questions Hey folks so member one question one followup Only

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minister's at the podium so clearly it'll be for minister Uh please state your name and your outlet And there's

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the media mic just over there If you could please use that and we'll go to the first reporter at the mic Go ahead

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Hi Colleen Enderwood CBC Calgary First question just what actually has been

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done with the books that you raised or parents raised concerns with have those been removed from schools have any as of

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yet been removed uh the provincial government does not have the authority to remove individual

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books nor am I suggesting that we have that authority here today Um we have

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raised those concerns with the individual school boards that uh we have um seen some of these books Uh and so I

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would have to defer you to them uh with respect to additional action that they may have taken And you mentioned some of

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the other uh we're the only or we don't have a provincewide um policy Do you

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know of any other place that does that would uh you'd compare to yeah I I'm not

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familiar offhand with any other province that has uh provincewide standards Um of

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course each province has different approaches in managing their education system generally Um we do as I mentioned

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have voluntary guidelines and so that has created a variance of policies and

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approaches So we just want to put some more uh provincialwide guard rails in

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place to make it more consistent Next reporter at the mic please And thank you

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Um Karolina Vendano the Epoch Times Uh Minister you have provided some examples

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of the books that you say are age inappropriate Um I'm wondering if there was a particular incident that prompted

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these measures For example if a parent found these books or children came home talking about it what prompted these

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right now yeah exactly In fact um a group of parents approached me uh and uh

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provided me with excerpts from many of these um many of these books and um

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other material Initially to be very honest I was very skeptical I thought that this was maybe examples from other

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jurisdictions or other countries Uh they showed me information though that suggested that it was indeed available

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at a variety of different schools And what really got me concerned is when they indicated that they had information

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that demonstrated this was available in elementary schools Uh so that's why we took a closer look over the next couple

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of months to see if this was indeed the case and validated and verified the information which we've confirmed is

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indeed the case So that was the particular incident that kind of uh raised this to our attention Thank you

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Minister My followup is um what recourse will parents or schools have if they

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disagree with a decision to either remove or keep a school a book in the library yeah so this is one of the

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things that we want to explore as as part of the engagement that we are launching here today Um you know there

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there are mechanisms already in place for parents to be able to challenge the um the the content of any particular

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book that may exist in a school library Um and but I think there's a little bit more work that we need to do in that

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regard So I hope that we can get a more robust answer from parents and from school trustees and administrators as we

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conduct this engagement over the next few months Next reporter at the mic please Heather your ex West Global

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National I can anticipate there'll be concerns um from LGBT advocates that this could result in less access to

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pro-LGBT or gender gender diverse um materials your your response to that

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um I I don't think it should Um I don't think that um there's any reason why

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these standards should limit content related to any subject or any topic The

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standards that we're looking at will relate specifically to uh uh books that

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contain graphic sexual images or graphic depictions Um that's what our concern is

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So this is not related to any kind of particular subject area If there was a book on astrophysics that had graphic

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sexual content I would have the exact same concerns And do you know what kind

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of um repercussions there might be for for schools that don't want to um abide

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by by these new standards and protest perhaps yeah Well I um I would hope that

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all school boards would would follow the procedures and guidelines that the province sets in place Um again we'll be

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chatting with them to see that uh if there are some serious areas where they can't um follow the guidelines but I

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don't think it should be a big problem to follow guidelines that broadly say you can't have graphic sexual images in

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elementary schools or in junior high schools or I I don't think that should be a big problem Right Thank you And uh

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last reporter at the mic before we go to lines Kaden Bradshaw LiveWire Calgary uh you mentioned wanting books to be age

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appropriate but you listed a lot of different grades where these books have been available How do you define uh for

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a certain book what age is appropriate for the students to be reading yeah this is an important question that we're

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going to need to address and it's part of the reason why I want to conduct a little bit more engagement with with parents to get their perspective um

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because I think it's ultimately their their final decision as to what kinds of uh material their children should be

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exposed to Um and as we mentioned in some of the preliminary uh research and survey work that we've done I think it

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was well over 90% said that uh books containing graphic sexual images should not be available anywhere in an

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elementary school environment So we want to uh dig a little bit deeper and hopefully through that research help to

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define where those lines should be Yeah My follow-up is in a world where most of these kids have access to the internet

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where this sexual content is readily available how and mo most kids don't read as many physical books anymore how

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will uh changing the content on these books make that big of an impact yeah well it will make an impact You know we

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recently put in new standards regarding the use of personal mobile devices in schools And similarly uh within that

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policy announcement also provided that um uh students would not be able to access uh certain sites uh including

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social media sites uh while at school So those restrictions and those kind of parameters are already in place Um and

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so the same should occur in in our school libraries uh you know what students do in their private time or at

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home is obviously none of our consideration but as it relates to material that is available in a public

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school library then uh or in any school library for that matter then it's something I think that warrants our

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attention thanks minister you're welcome all right last reporter at the mic and then we'll go to the lines hi my name is

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oruma compil radio Canada uh so minister how do you uh intend to uh draw the line

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between what's uh inappropriate artistic or you know with educative uh material

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Sure Um again I think we have to talk a little bit more with parents to get their understanding of where that line

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is Um you know I'm a parent myself and I don't believe that books containing

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graphic depictions of oral sex are appropriate in an elementary school environment And um some of the authors

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in fact of some of these particular titles that we've identified have even suggested themselves that these are not

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appropriate for children So we're happy to follow the advice and guidance of the

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individual authors and uh the general direction of parents Great Um follow-up

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question Uh so you're putting together a team that is going to you know be able to reflect on all that Who is going to

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be part of the team yeah So we uh we've already started conversations in fact with uh schoolboard trustees and uh

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superintendents and administrators Of course the school board trustees and the administrators are the ones who set the

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policies procedures and practices of a school division Um so we'll be chatting primarily with them Uh and of course

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other staff librarians would be important partners for us to have conversations uh school librarians I

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should say as it relates to this issue and and parents So these will be the the three primary categories of individuals

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that we'll be discussing with All right operator please put through our first caller

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Don Bradid with Calgary Herald Uh Minister uh you sure woke me up on a

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Monday morning I'll tell you that Um I just wonder how uh your people uh

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dealt with this They had a report from parents and you checked into that Did you actually send officials into the schools to see this material for

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themselves we uh we did in a couple of instances um look to go into particular schools where

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the books had been identified to see if they were indeed on the shelf Um and so that was confirmed and validated Uh

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further many of our school divisions have publicly accessible digital cataloges of all of the books that they

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have available in their school libraries and whether they're on the shelf and or checked out So we were also able to uh

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look through that information uh with some of these titles to explore if they were indeed in a school's collection

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Just as a followup I I it's pretty uh some of this stuff is pretty stunning

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for sure And my question is how does it get there there there are companies uh in Alberta I believe there are three

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companies in Alberta that uh actually sell these books uh graphic novels and

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it's kind of an industry because schools aren't you know a lot of people in schools are older and they're not used

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to graphic novels and they need some advice on how to handle them and the content and they get that from some of these reputable companies and buy

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according to what the companies provide So my question is how do things like this which certainly have got to be

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outliers these books you pointed out how do they get in you know I think that's that's a very

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important question and one of the main questions that uh I want some answers to as well Um I want to get a little bit of

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a better understanding of how this occurred in the first place and how these books ended up on school shelves And I'm not I don't want to point

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fingers I don't want to cast dispersions or or blame anyone you know there's clearly something with respect to

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process and procedure that has faltered here Um and uh I intend to uh

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investigate that in a little bit more detail get a better understanding from our school board trustees and

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administrators directly and work to address it That's our goal so that these types of books do not end up in uh in

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the hands of of a 5-year-old or a six-year-old Operator next phone please

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Sean Amato with City News Hi Minister I just want to get an

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understanding of uh what your objection to the word ban is I guess I take your point that you're not going after

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specific titles but the point of uh changing this process or these rules is

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to get rid of these books that you've deemed inappropriate So it is in effect a de facto ban is it not no I would

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completely disagree A book ban is a selection of specific uh titles and

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through some government instrument order uh directing that those books those specific titles not be available in

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schools Um that's not what we're doing here today What we're doing is engaging

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with our school trustees administrators and parents to understand what should the guard rails

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be of provincialwide policies Again schools already have policies in place So you

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know to to your logic we might all we might already be able to say that school boards themselves are banning books

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because they have policies in place um regarding the selection of of materials So they already have policies in place

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There's no there are no provincialwide standards And that's what we intend to do is to have some clear standards

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something as simple as to say that you can't have graphic depictions of oral sex in elementary schools and books of

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that topic are are not permitted in elementary schools So that's what we aim to do with our policy revision Followup

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Sean what if somebody complains about the Bible because um there are you know not

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graphic depictions I don't believe but there are written accounts of of things like rape and murder and uh some things

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that probably are not uh topics that are not necessarily appropriate for elementary schools to your point So so

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what would happen if somebody raises objection to some of the explicit content that we see in all kinds of

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books including the Bible an individual has the opportunity to raise any objection that they have with any um

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book found in a school library They they can do that uh currently as we go through the next couple of months in

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engaging on the development of these policies Our intent is to uh ensure that

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uh extreme offenders such as these ones that have been identified are do not make their way into a school library Of

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course there are lots of of um um lots of examples of

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uh in in um in a variety of different novels and uh other important works that

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maybe contain references to violence and uh and other pieces So that's where I

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think we need to work on helping to develop the standards You know is it is it a challenge to have a book that has

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commentary about violence probably not Is it a problem to have a graphic a

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graphic novel that has graphic depictions of rural sex probably So that's where I think we need to work to

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to draw some of those lines Operator next caller please

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Sheila Gunreed with Rebel News Sheila Gunreed with Rebel News Minister

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these materials aren't uh they aren't appropriate for TV or a live stream but

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will a published list of these books be made available so that people can see for themselves what is now being

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eliminated from school libraries in the public survey that we will be providing to Albertans we will have a link into

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that survey for individuals to see some of the the suggestible content that we're referring to because of course

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it's so hard to put all of this into context um without uh without uh

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providing some examples of what we're actually referring to So there will be some links uh available through the

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survey where an individual if they so desire can have a look at the material that uh is causing concern followup

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Sheila Yes Is the Alberta government prepared to go to court to defend this policy if

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activists or civil liberties groups try to sue uh well I wouldn't want to jump

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too far ahead of myself Um you know I would have to explore if something like

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that happens what the merits of that are and uh and determine next steps from there So I couldn't give you a detailed

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answer unfortunately at this point in something that uh may occur Uh but we do firmly believe that um children in our

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schools should not have access to books that contain graphic depictions of sexual acts

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Operator next caller Tamir Durani with Glob and Mail

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Hello Minister Thank you so much for taking our questions today Um I want to sort of get a real understanding here of

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what exactly it is you're doing with specific books here because I'm from the

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examples that we've been provided ahead of this announcement Um and right now that you're talking about some of which

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you're saying are inappropriate for this the four of them are all graphic novels right you've said there's multiple books

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that you've investigated and found Um but you've listed only four that are

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graphic novels each and many of which a majority of which deal with LGBTQ

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subjects So I guess I'm trying to understand is it only graphic novels or are you also talking about written

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novels and are they only LGBTQ subjects or are there other subjects that might be more graphic could you give us an

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understanding of what it is exactly uh which novels that the province is going to help people out with in the standards

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that the boards need to be setting here Sure We we haven't we don't have a definitive answer and we haven't made a

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final decision on those questions Um what uh what I'm announcing today is

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that we're going to spend the next couple of months getting more information from parents getting more information from trustees administrators

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and others about where these lines should be and where how we should craft

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the policy So that's what we're going to spend the next couple of months doing is is getting more perspective and then um

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in a future point we will be releasing the the policies that we develop So um I

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think a lot of your questions will be answered in the coming months when we actually firmly develop these policies

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and make them publicly available Um our big concern though is around uh the the

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graphic depiction of of uh molestation sexual acts and self harm

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That is that is my biggest concern is is around the graphic depiction of some of these acts So we still have to work on

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developing these policies and exactly you know where the lines will be drawn and I'll be very happy to provide you

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with those details when the policies are ready Followup Yeah you know I get a limited

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number of questions here in the way that we're asking you today but I do want to say Minister you know the to your

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question at this point the reality is you know these things do happen in the real world Um and kids do see these

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things online in many different ways In a book form it's a very different thing So I understand where you're coming from

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with this but these are graphic novels that are written in a graphic novel sort of way This is not usually in the way

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that you're depicting pornographies per se I take that point and I want to I hope you could address that as well But

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my real question here which because I get a limited set of questions I do want to ask you about you know you mentioned

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earlier that you the province does not have any authority per se to be able to book ban and that's why you don't you

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know have uh you don't want to call it a ban that what you're doing here is that so we won't use that word we can use

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prohibiting I imagine or some other word that you would prefer but I want to sort of understand here um are you going to

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create any legislation to get that authority then are you going to how are you going to do this I mean Because what

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you what we've been told is that the 2025 to 2026 year is when this will get applied That only leaves a few months

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this summer Will you be able to come up with these policies for the school board to concretely develop and follow by the

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fall could you give us an insight into that is there legislative action happening no we don't anticipate any

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legislative action I do anticipate we will be in a position to have the new policies and standards in place in

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advance of the upcoming school year uh the the current legislative authority and the education act does provide the

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minister of education with authority to set policies and standards related to the provision of education So there is

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already broadly that authority for the minister to set standards and policies with aspects that deal with uh with

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education So um but but that's that's the the difference here right i don't

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have the any kind of authority to uh go and pick a particular book off the shelf and say we're not allowing this book in

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our schools We we can't ban books The minister doesn't have that authority There's no legislative authority to do that The minister though does have the

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authority to develop policies And so we will be developing a new policy again as I mentioned that will simply say

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something to the effect that um books containing graphic depictions of sexual

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acts molestation or self harm um cannot be permitted in elementary schools or in

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junior high schools um that you know that that'll be at a a very high level some of the guard rails that we're

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looking to establish We don't intend or desire to reduce content on any

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particular subject but again we just want to make sure that that subject is communicated in an age appropriate way

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and I should reference again um some of these authors of some of these specific graphic novels have even said themselves

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they do not recommend these books for children All right we have time for one more

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question operator please put through the caller Jack Farah with the Canadian Press

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Hi Mister I'm I'm a little bit confused You you go back and forth between saying that you don't think these these four

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graphic novels you you brought up here are appropriate for junior high school kids and elementary school kids and then sometimes you just say elementary school

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kids So I guess my question is that are these four books fine in high schools but not in junior and elementary schools

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are they fine in junior high schools and high schools and not elementary like what's your clear position there yeah my

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my clear position is that that these specific examples are are not appropriate for kids Full stop Um I

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wanted though talk with parents and get a better understanding uh to see what their collective view is Um we did that

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with the implementation of the cell phone policy as well We talked with parents to get their perspective about

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what extent of cell phone use they thought is appropriate during breaks not during breaks only during learning time

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Uh so that's my personal position but uh that will not inform the final

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development of the policy I'm going to sit down and get some more perspective from parents uh understand more from

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administrators and schoolboard trustees and then we'll take a um uh an

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insightful approach into developing the final policies Followup Yeah And I'm I'm kind of curious how

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this plays into you know sexual education in schools Obviously like school library materials and and classroom materials are different but if

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your concern is you know sexual material available to kids through books it it applies to me that you know that would

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be the same for for sexed in schools And my real question for you though is why is uh sex topics of sexual nature and in

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in this sense like as we see in these graphic novels why is that wrong for high school kids that in some cases can

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vote can drink can drive and why why is it like necessary to protect them from

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you know sexual education uh this is not about protecting them from sexual education Um students in

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high school uh for the most part are minors Uh for the most part cannot uh

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cannot drink alcohol cannot vote You have to be of course 18 There are cases where you have 18 year olds in grade 12

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but um for the most part uh they are not And and so this isn't about protecting them from sex education We do have a

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robust sex education curriculum uh that we work towards delivering Um but uh you

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know that this part of the reason why we aren't able to show some of these images There's there's a potential that you

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know there there could be some issues with displaying uh pornographic images

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to minors which is a criminal offense So this is this again I just want to be

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very clear that we're talking about very extremely graphic depictions of acts

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We're not talking of books that say that another individual likes another person or something of that nature But these

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these are I'm I'm sure as you've probably seen from the pre-release these are extremely graphic depictions of

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molestation of self harm of suicide uh and of uh oral sex and other kinds of

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graphic depictions So I don't think a minor should uh be uh be viewing this

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type of material All right folks Thank you very much for your time today Hey if we didn't get you round to you please give me an email And uh yeah thank you

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very much Thank you