There’s never a bad time for a scandal-ridden right-wing government like Alberta’s United Conservative Party to try to gin up a moral panic over books with dirty pictures in school libraries.
But with the province’s auditor general asking for and receiving permission from the Alberta Court of Appeal to act as an intervenor in the lawsuit at the heart of a burgeoning corruption scandal, a measles epidemic running out of control in the province’s conservative heartland while the government pretends nothing is happening, and other political calamities bedevilling the United Conservative Party, the discovery of some books with unsuitable pictures in school libraries had obvious utility.
Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides called a news conference yesterday to break the news that “there have been multiple books found in some school libraries across the province that show extremely graphic and age-inappropriate content.”
Yikes, the local media seems to have thought, ensuring a good turnout at Dr. Nicolaides’ newser.
While the minister was vague about the parents he said alerted him to the existence of the offending books – he cited four examples while hinting that there were many more – one has to wonder if social conservative activists have been scouring school libraries looking for things to be outraged about and were lucky enough to find a few.
A few images from the four graphic novels named in the news release have been published on the government’s official website – so don’t get caught going to Alberta.ca on your work computer, even if you work for the Alberta government! A couple are pretty racy.
Nevertheless, it’s said here, there’s not enough in the examples published by the government to qualify for a full-blown culture war, if readers will forgive the expression. This is probably something that could have been handled with a private email to the school administrations.
Nothing of the sort was done, of course. Edmonton and Calgary school trustees published a joint statement yesterday pointing out that Dr. Nicolaides’ racy revelations were a “complete surprise” and expressing dismay at the minister’s implication they do not “follow established, rigorous processes to ensure that library resources are age-appropriate and relevant for students.”
But why let a crisis go to waste, even if it isn’t much of a crisis, when you can use it for pre-election push polling on the public dime? Accordingly, Dr. Nicolaides’ announcement included a 13-question survey designed to elicit the opinions the government wants in favour of its planned policy.
Including naughty pictures with a government survey is an interesting public engagement concept. One wonders if the government will pay the artists for the use of their copyrighted material?
It’s telling, one suspects, that most the books mentioned in the news release had LGBTQ+ themes. “It seems like there is no coincidence that the government’s announcement on library materials specifically singled out 2SLGBTQIA+ materials,” Alberta Teachers Association President Jason Schilling said in a news release emailed to media yesterday.
Dr. Nicolaides explained the survey as “a public engagement to collect feedback on the creation of consistent standards to ensure the age-appropriateness of materials available to students in school libraries.”
So, asked a reporter, there will be a province-wide ban on such books in school libraries? “This is not a question of banning specific books or specific titles but rather establishing clear policies and guidelines for all school divisions to follow,” Dr. Nicolaides said. Nevertheless, call it a ban or call it a policy, some books will certainly disappear from the shelves of school libraries.
So what about the Bible? a smart-aleck journalist wondered. Suffice it to say, the Bible will remain in Alberta schools, Song of Solomon, Lot’s daughters, frequent smiting, and all.
Dr. Nicolaides also insisted that LGBTQ+ content would not be prohibited as a class of literature. “If there was a book on astrophysics that had graphic sexual content, I would have the exact same concerns.” (Having grown up in the home of an astrophysicist, I can assure the minister that the Belt of Orion remains tightly fastened, even if one of the stars in question is actually a sextuple.)
Public libraries that share space with schools will not be affected, the education minister promised – although Albertans shouldn’t be too confident that public libraries won’t be next if the UCP moral panic campaign manages to gain some traction. Public libraries are already under assault in Alberta and throughout North America and efforts to defund them often seem to have LGBTQ rights issues at their heart.
None of the reporters asked what role the disappearance of school librarians due to government underfunding of education played in this situation. However, the ATA addressed that in its release. “Due to decades of education underfunding, school libraries are rarely staffed by certificated professional librarians or, preferably, teacher–librarians, who can help identify and develop guiding principles for the selection of appropriate materials,” the teachers’ union said.
The ATA urged the government to “engage in meaningful and broad consultation with librarians, teachers, students and families – including those from 2SLGBTQIA+ communities – and provide targeted and stable funding to restore teacher–librarians in Alberta schools.”
The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents school support workers who recently struck several school districts before reaching a satisfactory settlement, took a harsher line: Instead of waging “dubious culture wars” to distract from the underfunding of education, CUPE Local 3550 President Mandy Lamoureux told The Canadian Press, “the government should talk to parents, who will tell them book censorship does nothing to solve the real issues students face.”
Meanwhile, on Friday, Alberta Auditor General Doug Wylie sought and got the nod from the Alberta Court of Appeal to act as an intervenor in the wrongful-dismissal lawsuit brought by former AHS CEO Athana Mentzelopoulis in which she alleges managers were pressured to accept dodgy contracts by senior government officials.
The court said participation by the auditor general will be limited to two specific issues. Still, whatever they are, this cannot be good news for the government if only because it keeps the roiling issue before the public.
At the same time, the spread of measles in Alberta is clearly out of control while the government of Premier Danielle Smith, a longtime vaccine skeptic and enthusiast for quack medical treatments, does little to stop the spread.
As of yesterday, reported cases of the highly infectious disease in Alberta since early March had surpassed 600. In the United States, itself no paragon of public health delivery, the Centers for Disease Control last reported on May 23 that there had been 1,046 reported cases in the entire country of 340 million souls.
The outbreak is so severe in Alberta Health Services’ South Zone, where there have now been 452 cases reported, that AHS issued a public statement warning that “anyone in the South Zone who was born in or after 1970 and has fewer than two documented doses of measles-containing vaccine, is at risk for developing measles.”
Alberta Friends of Medicare Executive Director Chris Gallaway said yesterday that “this should be an all-hands-on deck situation.” He asked: “Where is the interim Chief Medical Officer of Health? Where is the minister? Why aren’t Albertans hearing from them?”
If Smith ever writes a book about her political tactics, it could be called the Art of Distraction.
Unfortunately for her, attempts to whip up anti Ottawa hysteria are not working as well any more with the new PM. As Smith sounds more unhinged, the new PM sounds more calm and more reasonable. I don’t know if the CPC has told her to cool it with the attacks on Canada, but I wouldn’t be surprised after her already very unhelpful comments and actions during the recent Federal election if they want her on a short leash.
So, time for a new distraction, let the culture wars begin or more correctly resume. No doubt Smith remembers well her previous Lake of Fire debacle from an election she lost a decade or so ago. So best to send a Minister to test the waters first instead, if they are too hot only he will get burned. I suppose it is good of the ever pugnacious Nicholaides to perhaps take one for the team here. There is a reason they keep ones like him around, at least until it blows up for them.
It is not a coincidence IMO that the ATA was holding a strike vote this weekend. The UCP has consistently and repeatedly vilified Alberta teachers, while chronically underfunding public education, to the point that parents are starting to notice the difference in the quality of their children’s education. So just when things are starting to look bad for them in education, they manufacture another issue to make teachers and school staff look bad. They’re allowing p0rn in the schools! Whoever believes this has never spent a day in a school. It is all made up.
DJC— loud guffaw!! ” the belt of Orion remains tightly fastened ”
Now you’ve ‘gone &done it’– if they get to the names of the constellations and all those Greek gods cavorting in the skies; that will be the end of another whole section in the libraries. I’m not sure if that will be before or after all the medical books.
Unless I missed something, I got the impression that it was all the graphic pictures that were the problem; which would explain the bible staying….one would actually have to ‘read’ it.
I’m guessing that some people just read the articles in the girly magazines– eye roll!!
As Lisa noted, he also said he didn’t care what the kids did ar home, which imo makes no sense, especially if it was “parents” that brought this to his attention.
IMHO, this has wifs of Florida, Texas, Colorado, with an extra helping of PragerU , sprinkle in some smoke off in the distance and next thing you know you have yourself a Gen-u-ine prairie fire. So what do you do, keep everyone focused on the 3 by-elections ,which should hold over until the federal is called (maybe) but either way, school will be out for summer and no one will remember come September.
Coincidentally (of course) that W5 was doing a rerun of the show(Feb) about the southern Alberta town library last night
..the War on Books….????
Religious fundamentalists find burning books way easier than reading them……just another element of control helping the controllers…….
They’ll need a bigger, better distraction before long at this rate. Wildfires ought to do it.
I sure hope everyone visiting Alberta for the G7 next month is vaccinated for measles. It would be a real shame if Alberta infected the world.
Priorities, priorities. It seems the UCP would rather go after “dirty books” in underfunded school libraries than make sure Albertans and their children protect themselves in proven ways against a potentially deadly and very contagious disease. That would even save money for our under funded public health care system.
I wonder which “scourge” will harm children more?
But, I suppose that’s not the point.
Leadership in Alberta is sorely lacking, or going in the wrong direction. Head Smashed In provincial park should be an object lesson for the UCP, not just another road side attraction.
You can clearly see that the UCP party are in political peril, and they are doing whatever they can, out of desperation, to try and change the focus away from their horrible governing. The Corruot Care scandal has a lot of merit, because there are so many facets to it. When the Auditor General has to control how the investigation is being handled, because Danielle Smith wants to interfere with it, there is a major problem. If a (now ex) UCP MLA, Peter Guthrie, says that there are shady things happening with this, you know for sure that something is very fishy. Measles cases in Alberta keep climbing to very alarming numbers, and Danielle Smith, along with her less than credible, and less than stellar, health minister, Adriana LaGrange, haven’t addressed this as they should have. What’s supposedly in school libraries is a much more pressing concern. Nero is basically fiddling, while Rome is burning. At this rate, premier Danielle Smith and the UCP can only have so much that they can use as means to try and shift the focus away from their bad governance, but that will only go so far. In due course, and likely before we know it, the UCP are finished. This was completely avoidable, had people bothered to listen to anyone who said how bad the UCP would be.
-Corrupt Care-
I’m just waiting for the UCP’s nonsense to extend to, those blights on society, the All-Gender washrooms. Like a bathroom that requires no specific gender to use? The outrage! Imagine all the confused people standing in front of these washrooms, questioning their gender, wondering if they should live their truth, and change their outward appearance to something more in keeping with their gender-reality. Hysteria! Dog and cats living together — the Apocalypse will be upon us!!!!!!
When in doubt, distract, which is exactly what Smith is doing. As for all that offensive reading material that is corrupting youth, I heard ‘Catcher in the Rye’ is especially destructive, as is ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’. Atticus Finch was a corrupter, defending a falsely accused black man — that’s so Woke. There’s no such thing as racism, so long as the non-whites don’t get out of line.
Alberta is about to have its Alabama test — let’s see how it does?
@Just Me
I don’t get the washroom hysteria. Just make them all toilets with doors that lock.
After all, those of us who grew up in little war houses shared the bathroom with all genders, sometimes seven or more and the major complaint was, “Put your makeup on in the bedroom, the rest of us are waiting to PEE!”
There weren’t as many cell phone cameras and ways to put hidden cameras in bathrooms back then. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-voyeurism-upei-washroom-administration-failed-1.5989508
Predators exist. Why make things easier for them?
https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/sex-relationships/article/unisex-changing-rooms-put-women-in-danger-8lwbp8kgk?region=global
Here’s an archive of that if you don’t have access:https://archive.ph/xSb2j
@LM, that’s why I’m saying…just put a toilet and sink in a closet (like train washrooms) that anyone can go in and lock the door.
As for danger in women’s washrooms, 40 years ago I was on stage playing bass in a sh*thole bar when a woman was r@ped in the women’s washroom by a large obvious man who walked straight in and there was nobody around to stop it and the music was too loud for anyone to hear her.
Predators in public washrooms is not a new problem. Single person washrooms should have been mandated decades ago.
As for hidden cameras–that’s a whole other problem.
Well, I suppose we could do it like the French did when I visited Paris in 1977 and there was a tough lady sitting at a table in the gentlemen’s room taking your centimes and handing you a tiny piece of TP as well as ensuring nobody got up to anything inappropriate for a public place. I’m assuming there were tough ladies at the desk in the ladies’ room as well. Jobs, dignity (sort of), a source of revenue to maintain a public service, and public safety. DJC
And predators can be of similar genders? What’s your point? Should everts family member have their own bathroom now too?
I’m confused
@Laurel,
Have you ever used a train bathroom? They aren’t “gendered”. You go in a little booth, lock the door, do your thing, wash your hands in the tiny sink then unlock the door and leave.
I’ve lived in apartments smaller than some public restrooms. All that wasted space could be used for private cubicles.
Same with a bunch of people in a house. You go in, lock the door, do your thing and leave. You don’t need a washroom for the boys, and one for the girls, and one for whatever and since nobody but the person needing it can get in once the door is locked.
Other countries do this. Dunno why it’s difficult.
David, you raise an excellent point about school library staff being so busy ‘doing more with less’ that inappropriate material can find its way onto shelves. On the government website listing all the inappropriate material, I noticed one of the books they made reference to had offensive material on pages 289, 515 and 517. It would appear part of doing more with less, then, requires a school librarian to read every page of every book that comes into the library.
Many years ago I heard of a parents’ group that wanted a school librarian fired because she dared put a book on the library shelf titled ‘Making it with Mademoiselle’. Turned out it was a cookbook.
Where are the Ministers you ask? Could they be busy spilling their seed on stony ground while gazing at pictures of Donald Trump?
Anon: I fear you’re conflating the story of Onan with the Parable of the Mustard Seed. DJC
Point taken, but you have to admit it is a good quip and rather accurate. If the division, hatred, and violence they are seeding grow like the proverbial mustard seed remains to be seen. Hopefully Alberta will prove to be stony ground, but my optimism is not what it used to be.
You killed it. That is exactly what they are doing!
Smoke and mirrors! More subterfuge, lies and UCP BS. What else are they up to?
The move is most certainly a deflection from far more important issues. Even so, I think its important to remember that kids are not all ready at the same time to be introduced to the reality of adult sexuality. Some of the titles mentioned are pretty shocking even to adults. And yes, they do happen to mostly cover LGB issues, and trans issues. Heterosexual kids finding their way through petting to intercourse doesn’t seem to be a hot topic in the world of “children’s” books. And even if I am incorrect is that, they too should be assessed for age appropriateness. As a society in general, we have been exposing kids to far more sexual content than at any time ever in the preceding century. It doesn’t seem to be particularly positive judging by studies of general mental health of youth. Three years ago, this librarian was ousted from a zoom meeting in Kitchener for these statements, “Minutes into her presentation, Burjoski used the book “Rick” by Alex Gina as an example.
Burjoski read from the book’s second chapter where the character Rick questions his sexuality for not thinking about naked girls, is invited to the school’s rainbow club, and ends up declaring an asexual identity.
“While reading this book I was thinking ‘maybe Rick doesn’t have sexual feels yet because he is a child,” said Burjoski. “It concerns me that it leaves young boys wondering if there is something wrong with them if they aren’t thinking about naked girls all the time. What message does this send to girls in Grade 3 or 4? They are children. Let them grow up in their own time and stop pressuring them to be sexual so soon.”
Burjoski went on to say “in fact some of the of the books make it seem simple, even cool, to take puberty blockers and opposite sex hormones.” https://www.ctvnews.ca/kitchener/article/wrdsb-teacher-removed-from-virtual-board-meeting-after-comments-deemed-transphobic-by-chair/
Age-appropriateness is determined in lots of other areas – film, live entertainment, broadcast TV. Why not books? Why haven’t schools taken this on themselves? Well, we can see that in Kitchener anyway, one’s professional reputation can be severely damaged by asking if books should be ascertained as age-appropriate. Therefore, it appears that the question must be asked by a government, because it is simply too dangerous for an individual to do so. For which ages is this book appropriate for? It should be a pretty easy question to ask, but it appears to be able to set off a firestorm. The fact that it sets off a firestorm in both Ontario and Alberta tells me that while Danielle Smith has grabbed this issue as a shield from other major issues, it IS an issue that educators should be able to discuss with a view to kids, and not be pummeled by interest groups from either side of the political spectrum.
“Where is the minister? Why aren’t Albertans hearing from them?” Toss the lot overboard along with their hapless captain.
I don’t even know why this is a thing. When I went to school, they sent home a letter asking if there were any books that each particular parent wanted banned for their child.
My mother wrote on it “No Harlequin Romances”. She didn’t approve of poorly written literature.
So, I read Mein Kampf, Mao’s Little Red Book, Cicero, Catch 22, Portney’s Complaint, Dickens, Mark Twain, Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, Sigmund Freud, Steal This Book, Abnormal Psychology, The Joy of Sex, Electric Koolaid Acid Test and practically every other book that looked vaguely interesting I could get my hands, on.
Puleeze, the major problem with kids is *getting* them to read these days…not stopping them.
Why do we think children and teens are stupid? Do these people not realize all their kids have to do is crack open a laptop and everything there is in live, in High Def colour? Better a book with thoughtful discourse they can discuss together. Kids need to learn discernment and critical thinking.
How hard is it just to send home a note then use a computer data base to cross-reference which kids can’t take home which books? Got to be easier than a librarian having to look it up in a binder.
“the major problem with kids is *getting* them to read these days…not stopping them.” My mother was a school librarian in the ’80’s. There were some complaints from parents about the popularity of horror books, and my mother’s response was the same as your comment! The kids were learning to read for pleasure, something that will hopefully become a live long habit.
@Jane, another point about horror books for kids is that the protagonists are often *working class*–they aren’t rich, or famous or academics or important people–they’re generally written to be accessible; plumbers, carpenters, mechanics, factory workers, fast food servers, doctors, nurses, every day people. The heroes are people that most kids are surrounded by but don’t see as frequently in other literature. Writing about regular people skyrocketed Stephen King to constant Best Seller, status.
I doubt most young folks get that on the surface as to part of the reason they’re so drawn to horror books.
The southern border evangelical earthworm infestation of the Magacon UCP continues on in Alberta……
JW— the reason the worm died, was because it starved to death.
And going out on a limb here, but if the others were tested, I’m sure you’d probably find the same results.
If enough children die of measles the Alberta government won’t have to worry about insufficient funds for schools. Some may think that is a horrible thought, but really have you looked at history books or what is going on in the world.
The government types are concerned about LGBT2 books in school libraries. I don’t really care what kids read, I’m more interested in them having decent health care, vaccines, adequate shelter and clothing, and get a decent education which would include reading what they want. It is not up to politicians to restrict what children may read.
These Bible pounders in Alberta just confuse the hell out of me. They carry on as if its the end of the world because there are some books in the school library dealing with subjects regarding people who may be LGBTQ2. Now these complainers usually declare themselves “good christians”. If they believe in a religion which advises God made us in his/her image then what is wrong with being LGBTQ2. Really those anti LGBTQ2 types have never seen this god so how do they what he/she looks like.
I’d agree, the Alberta government is looking to distract the voters from the real issues and focus on something which isn’t relevant to providing children then necessities of life. If they are trying to convince voters LGBTQ2 books in a library is a bigger scandal than their actions in the health care system, good luck with that.
@ e.a.f.
Sometimes I wonder if what they’re really worried about is books are the books that tell you about how your body belongs to yourself and not the pastor, Uncle Weird or Mommy’s best friend from church.
Yes, there is that group. If kids had good sex education in schools that might prevent some of the assaults or the child would know it was not appropriate for adults to engage in sex with kids. Many of those who don’t want information in the schools are those who believe what the books inform kids of is “sick”, “evil, sick, not what god wants”. Never did figure out why people were so interested in other people’s sex lives. The bunch which has always made me laugh or when I was younger why were adults so stupid, where the ones who didn’t want sex education in the schools. Adults would carry on like crazies if a girl got pregnant. So why didn’t they want sex education, at least kids would learn about birth control because “the pill” was available for married women when we were in about grade 7. Sex education was not taught in public schools in the 1960s in our province.
Where is the minister? What minister? There are four of them and not one is competent!
Perhaps it is a requirement of the job that they be incompetent.
The UCP do not have a problem with a book that includes incest in school libraries. Shocker!
Alberta is Poilievre’s soon to be adopted province, I imagine he will be avoiding this school library book ban topic like the plague. Pierre can’t have the woke folk in the “905” thinking he is a book ban or book burnin’ kind of guy.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters. I will start by saying that I haven’t seen any of the actual c0ntent in question. I have a theoretical question. If it is inappropriate, however this is defined according to some standard, how did the books get there? Were they actually purchased by the school boards and included in the catalogue of library books for schools?
Christina: Well, this is the $64,000 Question, as they used to say, isn’t it. The content is easy to find on the Government’s web page. You’ll probably agree that some of the drawings aren’t appropriate for small children – but that the impact is not likely to be serious. The books probably got there because someone, possibly at a school board, employed a book buying agency because there was no money for a school librarian. But who knows? Maybe they were put there by the “parents” inspecting the libraries. Stranger things have happened. We just don’t know and the government presumably has no interest in finding out. Nor do we know how many books were actually found that actually had genuinely offensive material in them. Not many, I would bet. Maybe just four. DJC
I don’t know they they actually found any books. As you stated, reports are vague.
Its possible that a school librarian ordered a book – particularly if it was a school request (my school librarian takes requests from students), and didn’t give it a proper review before putting it on the shelves, but I do think that is highly unlikely. That being said, that does happen on occasion, and if concerned parties address the issue with the librarian or school staff, they would likely have removed the item.
As you said, going from “hey, someone said there was an inappropriate book” to “lets make a new law” is a huge leap…
It’s actually probably even simpler than that – I didn’t really care to look beyond the first title mentioned (Maia Kobabe’s Gender Queer) but I would wager it actually has it’s entirely because it’s an award winning book that likely appeared on a list of YA (Young Adult, we’ll come back to this keep this in mind) Bestsellers or Award Winning titles list and was probably selected based on that. Which is a incredibly normal practice in collection development in both Public and School Libraries – especially when your staffing is minimal or especially so when it’s lacking in formal training. Now to swing back slightly – What is YA? Well for the most part it’s a marketing term that has grown a fair bit too much beyond it’s original purpose. Originally (and often for that matter remains) as a descriptor for materials aimed at about the 16-20ish age bracket demographic (+-1-2 years in either direction). I’m sure by now you can see the problem with vagueness especially when it’s a floating target and quite frankly some YA materials are perfectly fine to be read by younger teenagers – the flip side is that it also has materials that are content wise pretty much perfectly in line with Adult materials – but with often simplified themes and language being used. Gender Queer is for better or worse one of the items that retains a YA label and explores themes and ideas that are targeted towards a later Teen (Young) audience while also having content that is more in line with the ‘Adult’ side of the equation. YA collections in especially High School libraries are exceedingly common because like that is the usual demographic targeted by publishers when slapping it with these labels. For that matter plenty of books in ‘Adult’ sections of public libraries find their way onto High School library shelves (I read an absolute load of Stephen King out of mine, nevermind sci-fi paperbacks that had essentially smut scenes in them). This is not a new or novel phenomenon, I would wager if you wandered through some of the sci-fi fantasy sections in some school libraries you could find smut that would make you blush. This is, unfortunately yet another swing at ‘it’s only bad because the queers are doing it’. The hypocrisy is blatant to anyone who has any idea of whats actually on these shelves. This is just throwing people under the bus for daring to order off whatever YA sale list Whitehots has put out for the month.
Way back when I was in school, if you wanted to see racy pictures you’d have to flip through a stack of National Geographics. So what’s next, banning NG from school libraries as well??
FoF: NG, like the Bible is OK. Neither is “woke.” DJC