Alberta K–12 School Book Ban Prohibits Images of Explicit Content

Photo Credit: Kevin Ma/St. Albert Gazette

The province of Alberta has enforced a book ban for K–12 classrooms and school libraries, prohibiting works “containing any explicit visual depiction of a sexual act,” according to the CBC. However, the ban will not affect public libraries or any other government institution that provides books and resources for students and their families. It will also not affect books that “are for information or reference, such as technical materials, dictionaries, or encyclopedias, that are not narrative in nature,” as stated in the ministerial order.

The current ban is a revised version of a previous ministerial order that received significant public backlash in the summer. Issued on July 4 by Alberta Minister of Education Demetrios Nicolaides, the original order required all books containing images, illustrations, audio, or written passages about sexual content to be removed from K-12 school libraries starting Oct. 1, but was extended to Jan. 5, 2026.

According to The Gauntlet, the previous ban that included written work would have taken hundreds of books off of shelves. For example, when the Edmonton School Board shared their proposed list of banned books, it suggested taking over 200 books off school shelves, including classics such as The Handmaid's Tale, 1984, and The Colour Purple. This sparked outrage from educators and civil liberties groups concerned with potential ideological abuses of power.

On Aug. 29, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith stated in a press conference that the number of banned books on the Edmonton Public Schools list was a "vicious compliance” and that it wasn't the province's intention to prohibit literature to such a large scale, as reported by CBC News. 

In a blog post on Sept. 2, Margaret Atwood, the author of The Handmaid's Tale, questioned why Alberta was laying the blame on the Edmonton division. “Compliance with an order the government itself issued and that school boards were compelled to implement? Whatever do they mean?”

Then, on Sept. 2, Smith announced that the Alberta government was going to be revising the bill to only include sexual images. “We are not trying to remove classics of literature. What we are trying to remove is graphic images that young children should not be having a look at,” Smith said. “What I would like for the school boards to say is: ‘We agree! Children shouldn’t see pornographic images. We’ll work with you on that.’ And that’s what I hope the spirit going forward will be.”