In Alberta Schools, Books Aren’t the Threat, Censorship Is

Alberta has recently issued a ministerial order banning books containing “explicit sexual content” from school libraries and broadly limiting students’ access to “non-explicit sexual content”. Howard Sapers, CCLA’s executive director, and Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, CCLA’s director of Fundamental Freedoms, have co-authored an open letter denouncing this order as state censorship.

“Banning a book based on a few excerpts ignores all the other valuable lessons that students could have learned from reading it. Hence, in the name of protecting young people from sexually suggestive content, Alberta will deprive generations of students of easy and free access to books that might have, above all, answered some of their questions, challenged them and encouraged them to develop critical thought. These are no small issues, as a thriving democracy requires an informed and engaged population – people who have been and continue to be exposed to diverse ideas that provoke debate and enhance understanding.”

“The Alberta government should not be eroding the fundamental rights and freedoms of some of its most vulnerable community members. We urge Albertans of all walks of life to see this government order as what it truly is: censorship through a harmful intrusion of the state in its constituents’ rights to learn, grow, and live their lives as their most authentic selves.”

You can read here the op-ed published in the Edmonton Journal