Last week, the provincial government of Alberta announced it will implement new rules regarding books that are available to children in schools.

Alberta’s Minister of Education, Demetrios Nicolaides, said in a press conference that the province is moving forward with an initiative to ban “sexually explicit” materials from school libraries. Nicolaides said: “these are extremely graphic depictions of molestation, self-harm, suicide and oral sex… I don’t think a minor should be viewing this type of material.”

This move came after the province investigated multiple books circulating in elementary and high schools in Edmonton and Calgary which contain sexually explicit and graphic content.

Schools are places of learning. Why are children being exposed to age-inappropriate content? Why won’t other provinces crack down on these explicit books as well?

Examples of Books

Gender Queer, Fun Home, Blankets, and Flamer are the four books listed as examples by the province. All of these books contain age-inappropriate content in their sexually explicit language, graphic descriptions, and images.

The province is also initiating a process for complaints and concerns about books, and other materials, as well as a survey available to the public, allowing parents to voice their concerns about what their children are exposed to.

Sexually inappropriate literature in schools is a widespread problem across Canada. PAFE has been sounding the alarm about this issue for years! For the past few months, we have been working on a database of inappropriate books containing explicit sexual descriptions or graphic depictions of sexual acts, as well as radical ideologies.

Materials like these should not be permitted in schools or made available to children. This should not be controversial.

But are we surprised? With radical sexual education offered to children in all provinces —yes, including Alberta! — It’s no wonder that kids are offered sexualized books as supplemental education.

All provinces need to act!

Ontario’s Premier Ford made a promise to parents to repeal Premier Kathleen Wynne’s sex-ed, but not only did he flip-flop, his government made it worse! Schools across Ontario are wrought with more ideological indoctrination than ever before.

PAFE speaks out for children and defends the rights of parents to choose what their children are learning and doing at school, and their right to be their children’s first educators.