If Alberta Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams’ scheme to ban books in public libraries is intended as way to distract voters from the deluge of uncomplimentary Globe and Mail stories about the United Conservative Government’s metastasizing dodgy health care contracts scandal, he might want to pick another distraction.
Public libraries are among the most beloved public institutions and recent Canadian history shows attacks on them, whether they’re efforts to interfere with the rights of readers to read like Mr. Williams’ gambit, or defunding their operations, ever popular with right-wing city councils, come with considerable political risk.
Mr. Williams’ plan to make it difficult for borrowers read books he doesn’t approve of – starting with graphic novels that mention sexuality but ending up God knows where – was introduced in the Legislative Assembly as part of Bill 28, the Municipal Affairs and Housing Statutes Amendment Act, 2026, the Thursday before the holiday weekend.
It’s hard to say for sure, but the library additions to the act didn’t have the look or sound of a considered policy change. Rather, they had the sloppy feel of something scratched out on an envelope and tossed into the bill in to give the government’s critics something else to talk about while energizing the UCP’s base, always on the alert for anything with a prefix like trans in it.
Yesterday, the reaction to the UCP bill from a variety of quarters began to hit the proverbial fan.
In a letter to Mr. Williams and Premier Danielle Smith, the Coalition of Alberta Public Libraries raised a list of concerns with the Bill 28, and requested the government go back to the drawing board and come up with a more sensible approach.
“Albertans trust their public libraries,” Pilar Martinez, CEO of the Edmonton Public Library, said politely in a news release published by CAP Libraries about the letter. “Bill 28 creates new barriers to access, moves decision-making from local boards and trained professionals, and raises privacy concerns. Taken together, these changes undermine a system that communities across Alberta rely on and value.”
Also, as retired St. Albert Public Library CEO Peter Bailey said in this space on Wednesday, it’s an effort by the government to gin up a moral panic with no basis in reality whatsoever. “There is absolutely no evidence for the government’s assertions,” he stated a little more bluntly.
The CAP Libraries release also quoted Parkland Regional Library System Director Ron Shepherd saying something the UCP should really attend to. “Rural and regional libraries are deeply concerned about Bill 28,” he said. “If passed, this bill would undermine access to information, local decision-making, and the privacy of Albertans.”
“Library staff work every day to support families and respect parental responsibility,” Mr. Shepherd added. “Bill 28 would place library workers in gatekeeping roles that don’t reflect how public libraries operate and would make everyday service far more difficult for communities across Alberta.”
In its letter, CAP Libraries asked the minister to consult with libraries first before it tries to fix something that ain’t necessarily even broke. (My words, not theirs, of course.) It also asked for the government to reduce barriers to access instead of creating more, to recognize that libraries are already paying attention to concerns about age-appropriate materials, and to come up with funding whenever the government makes new operational demands.
In a statement on Instagram yesterday, CUPE Alberta, which represents many public library workers throughout the province, said Mr. Williams’ plan is “unnecessary, unworkable, and creates more problems than it solves.”
“This means that adults would be forced to talk to library staff members just for permission to borrow these materials,” the short video says.
“We’re not book bouncers and we don’t check ID at the doors,” said the library worker in the clip. “Bill 28 will require the physical segregation of library materials that the government deems explicit. This bill goes far beyond children’s materials and extends to both our teen and adult collections, including art history books, magazines, movies, TV shows and video games, which all would have to be stored within an area of the library that is inaccessible to the public.”
Of course, this may or may not be the intention of the government’s vaguely worded legislation. Who can tell? But libraries that anger patrons by following the government’s instructions risk having the same government accuse them “vicious compliance,” as Premier Smith did when her government enacted similar regulations last year for school libraries and Edmonton Public Schools’ list included more than 200 titles, including works by esteemed authors like Margaret Atwood and George Orwell.
As Edmonton City Councillor Michael Janz said on his website: “Restricting access to library materials constitutes censorship, regardless of whether items remain physically present in library buildings.”
“Might I remind you, children are not to be left unattended in the library,” the Ward papastew councillor added pithily. “So the premise of this whole problem the province is trying to ‘solve’ is flawed. Perhaps it is a distraction from the Alberta health care procurement scandal?”
As a result, Edmonton City Council will consider a motion by Ward Anirniq Councillor Erin Rutherford at an upcoming meeting. Mr. Janz indicated he is prepared to second the motion. The motion will:
- Express concern about the impact of the bill on local governance, library operations, access to library materials, patron privacy, and quality of library services in Edmonton
- Affirm council’s confidence in the Edmonton Public Library Board and its professional staff to manage library collections
- Call on the government to engage in “direct, structured consultation with the Coalition of Alberta Public Libraries, municipalities, and library boards” before finalizing any new regulations
- Tell the government to ensure operational requirements imposed on public libraries by legislation are accompanied by dedicated provincial funding
- Direct city officials to send a copy of this resolution to Mr. Williams, Premier Smith, local MLAs, Alberta Municipalities, and the Rural Municipalities of Alberta.
The previous UCP premier started a war against doctors and health care, the current one now seems to be starting a war against librarians and libraries. As others have noted she seems to like picking fights, perhaps this is another way to try distract from her health care scandals and related problems.
The now book banning UCP’s leader claimed to be a libertarian in the past, which makes me wonder if she really knows what that term means. At least, as far as know, she never claimed to be a librarian. So it is probably fair to say she doesn’t know much about what the job entails or maybe she doesn’t care. I feel she doesn’t let the facts get in the way of her political arguments.
Separation is the distraction from Draconian legislation such as Bill 28. These vile books’ “separation” from the rest of a library’s stock is but one of this bill’s many egregious elements. Municipalities and their budgets and bylaws are once again the primary target. Watch the separatists tear Alberta’s society to pieces while this government and UCP party draft laws to grab more power and money.
That’s exactly what this is, being another very lame attempt at distracting Albertans from the UCP’s very severe corruption, which will take them down. Does the UCP think that there are voters who are that stupid? Children also have access to the internet at home, or they can go to a friend’s house and use it. Beer chugging, Dan Williams, is out to lunch, and so are the UCP. When he was in the Alberta Legislature, partaking in a session, he was gulping down a can of beer. Did he not realize that children could be present with their school teacher in the Alberta Legislature?
If he is so keen on censorship I’ll contribute to his relocation costs. He will be much more comfortable in Florida or Texas, Russia, China, etc.
Children have parents and they decide what they can read, listen to, etc. The government can’t even provide decent affordable day care for kids, or pay families on social assistance enough money to live on, so how are they going to take on the role of parents regarding what a child reads, etc.
If this guy is concerned about children he should start with them getting timely and adequate health care, enough teachers in class rooms, decent housing for children which their parents can afford, etc.
I have found that those weirdos who want censorship on what kids read, don’t really care about the rest of the things children need in their lives.
e.a.f.: The UCP only believes that parents should direct their children’s educations if the parents’ directions are in accordance with the wishes of the UCP base. DJC
Authoritarian Libertarians brr. Agree or be silenced!
e.a.f.: The UCP cares about children? Their backwards policies, including cutting red tape had harmful effects on children. Almost 500 children got sick from E-Coli at daycares in Alberta. Measles cases are the highest on continental North America, right here in Alberta. Rachel Notley managed to cut child poverty in Alberta by 50%. Under the UCP, Alberta leads Canada with the number of children going to school on an empty stomach.
So
A ten-year-old in Alberta who can watch anime pr0n on his/her phone screen will no longer be able to see great works of art in books because there might be nudes.
That’s the level of crazy we’re talking about here.
How many “good touch/bad touch” books are they going to yank, books that didn’t exist when I was a kid, that tell kids what’s wrong with Uncle HandyHands and to tell someone?
Always makes me wonder if that’s the real purpose of these book purges.
Perhaps Dan the Man, can make it simple, for his own benefit. Subscribe to Gidion International, a male Christian organization..order all the bibles he needs for public consumption. A best seller for all.
CTV news this morning says they want to ban notebooks? Because we can’t have kids doing research in the library, or learning anything.
If Williams ever set foot in a library, did he spend all his time drawing dirty pictures in his notebook?
Or…privatize all libraries and let them set their own rules as private entities.
PRN for everyone! Any age, any time. FreeDUMB, baby!
In grade 6, having learned in school of a book called “The Last Days of Pompey”, unaccompanied by an adult in 1962, I tried to borrow the book from the old Crescent Heights Library in Calgary. The librarian requested a note from my parents before I was allowed to borrow it. My mother wrote the note and I got the book. Whatever the concern was with the book went over my head. I was too busy reading about the eruption and what it did to Pompey and the people! PS—when I visit Calgary and drive past the old library building on Centre Street, I can still smell the library and feel the peace there. Libraries do indeed matter!
This is where I got my first public library card when I was in elementary school. I was allowed only two books per week and only from the children’s section. Many were classics recommended by the children’s librarian. I continued to stop in years later on the way home from Crescent Heights High School, a few blocks away.
Remember how the library was a dance hall in its previous life before it was converted to a small and much-loved community library branch? Eventually it was abandoned in favor of mega-branches in far-away communities. I miss it, too.
The Sprawl just posted a great story about that library.
https://www.sprawlcalgary.com/the-missing-calgary-library-branch-in-crescent-heights
My sister and I were avid bookworms, so my parents would regularly drive us in from the farm to the Central Library for more books. I think we may have gone to Crescent Heights Library the odd time.
Here’s an interesting story about it:
https://globalnews.ca/news/9803350/calgary-crescent-heights-library-painting-saved/
They want to treat children like prisoners.
Children? They are coming for all of us. These people should get a no return ticket to North Korea, where they will feel right at home.
The magician’s tricks are never supposed to be revealed and so it is with the shady back room deals and revolving doors that enable the persistence of the closely guarded secrets that are the political game/carnival.
Scandals seldom topple governments, as corruption is expected and baked into the equation. See for example the ‘Greenbelt Scandal’ in Ontario. Where corruption is generally understood to include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement.
When the MSN starts crowing about how “tired” the current government looks and that it “lacks initiative” and “fresh ideas”, only then will “change” be allowed; where, “the other party which will be none of these things but will still pursue, with new vigor, approximately the same basic policies.”” .
In this society the interests of concentrated wealth and power supersede all other interests and the political class serves those interests willingly.
It is the public’s job to be amused, entertained, distracted, and to be properly indoctrinated with those values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that enable them to be successfully integrated into the accepted institutional structures of the larger society.
If they don’t like things with trans in them, the UCP should be wary of any trans-Canada oil and gas pipelines.
Awful nice of Dan Williams to coordinate his ‘fit to those book covers as if he’s endorsing them on a publicity tour. Probably good he got rid of his ridiculous Stalin ‘stache, all things considered.
Scratched on an envelope? Don’t they have cocktail napkins in the Legislature for Williams’ sloppy chugging from definitely-not-a-prop full can of cheap beer, which is definitely not allowed in those hallowed halls? Imagine getting paid by the public to drink on the job. Shields up again. Even Fred Flintstone didn’t drink at the rock quarry.
Segregated books, you say? Isn’t that just opening the door to library “freedom riders” to come into the branch? The only way to stop this will be to defund public education to the point that no one is functionally literate after Grade 12 completion. Perhaps no one in Dan Williams’ constituency would notice any difference. How do you think he got elected?
Speaking of bouncers, shouldn’t someone check up on the liquor licence for the Legislature when it’s in session? Police check stops outside the parkade might be a plan, too. Drinking and driving kills. Books don’t.
None of this will stop until the UCP is reduced. If not by fire, then by dramatic totalizing electoral defeat.
This isn’t so much about Alberta, as it is about, on the one hand, the ridiculously excessive power placed in the hands of provincial premiers, and on the other hand, the rural/urban divine coupled with excessive rural representation in provincial legislatures, which in Alberta is placing that power in the hands of a minority of insane people. We’d be better off with a handful of city states exercising draconian home rule upon the ungovernable tribal regions.
How long should the population of Edmonton and Calgary accept to be governed on these terms?
Not long, my friend. As I’ve been saying for a couple of years, YEGxit Now!” DJC
Have you, indeed? Hard agree! I’d offer to subscribe to your newsletter, except I guess I already do.
Totalizing electoral defeat–whoa yeah!!
…but I’m not sure Alberta would be any better off by placing power in the hands of a majority of insane people either.
If not by fire, then by drama is the bequeathment of the polis.
It seems obvious from the picture of Mr. Williams that he is subtly telegraphing that he is coming out of the closet. The same closet where the book burners and blue stockings have been hiding up to now.
Incompetence again and again until the end of our mental capacity to put up with this medieval mindset. Along with the dementia down South, one wonders what will be left at the end of this dark ages period.
Dave, I would like to personally thank the Smith UPC for addressing all this pornography in Libraries. For too long we have been exposed to these secret library rooms, which we allow children into, to expose them to this type of material. For too long we had to endure not only shorts, but also skirts, that are above the knees!! Shoulders exposed, two piece bathing suits, drinks with dinner and farm animals pro-creating in fields beside our hi-ways!!!! The horror of it all! Addressing this has to be done, for the sake us all. And I can think of no one better than the UPC brain trust to tackle these issues. We should be thankful, that these mental giants, with anal brains are leading us out of the light and back into the dark.
Given all the trouble and the rabble-rousing by the ‘Berta seepar-ratists, it’s interesting to note that the UCP is wildly more popular than the ABNDP. Why?
Most people living in Alberta are not from there and can’t wait to get out.
Most people in Alberta are here to get paid and get out.
Most people in Alberta hate their politicians are not surprised when they steal.
Most people in Alberta don’t care what happens to others.
Most people in Alberta just don’t care.
So, for the moment the FreeDUMB crowd are able to be cosplay revolutionaries, because of some preceived slight from Ottawa. But one one thing that really amazes me is that they seem to believe Carney will just let them do whatever they want. PMJT biggest problem was that he was always worried about what people thought of him. Carney, on the other hand, remains a black box of sorts: what is he really capable of? Since we are now living in disorderly times, everything free for all now that the guardrails are almost gone. Carney is quiet about all this, and seemly has no opinion on the antics going on in Alberta. It maybe that Carney is just waiting for all the pieces to fall into place before he decides to drop the hammer.
Hello DJC and fellow commenters,
It looks as though Danielle Smith government is taking a leaf out of the Viktor Orban government’s approach in Hungary, as approved by U. S. Vice President J. D. Vance. According to this NBC News article, J. D. Vance said that governments should “give [universities] the choice between survival or taking a much less biased approach to teaching.” And further “telling an Orbán rally in Budapest on Tuesday that “children should be able to go to school and get educated and not indoctrinated.”
The fact that the Vice President is in Hungary supporting Viktor Orban who is essentially a dictator, during Orban’s re-election campaign before the Hungarian election tells us which way the U S is tending. And, it seems that our provincial government is displaying the same tendencies in its attempt to circumscribe what the public is permitted to read. Here is a link to the NBC News article. https://www.nbcnews.com/world/europe/orban-hungary-university-exile-jd-vance-model-us-rcna267253?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-ca
If they don’t like things with trans in them, the UCP should be wary of any trans-Canada oil and gas pipelines.
I live in Ontario and do not knew enough about Alberta politics to do it but someone in Alberta should be able to write a nice little satire on this theme.
A solution in search of a problem. But it’s more than that — it’s suggesting, yet again, that trusted institutions can’t be trusted. Heck, that anyone other than the UCP can’t be trusted.
Never mind that kids can find far, far more explicit material on their phones and tablets, or that rumours of dirty lines in Tropic of Cancer got me to read, or at least skim through, Henry Miller at the Lethbridge Public Library as a teen.
The real worry here is that it’s just more “us vs. them” nonsense – and, worse, another case of an entirely not-thought-out policy being rammed through as a PR stunt.
See: Abolishing photo radar, etc. etc.