“Premier, there are rumours swirling online…”
Guilty!
After my video breaking this news on Tuesday: “Danielle Smith is scheming to extend her book ban to all libraries provincewide.”
Sean Amato at CityNews put this question directly to the premier.
People are saying that your school book ban, or school book restrictions that you put in place for libraries, school libraries, will soon be extended to public libraries as well. Is that happening? And if so, why?
No. There won't be any books removed from… from school libraries, but… or from… But we have to understand that there are some libraries that are co-located with elementary schools, even though they're a public library. And so I think that you'll see some guidelines around how to make those books accessible to the older students, and make sure that these graphic images, sexual images, are not available to younger, younger people. So, I'll let the minister talk a little bit more when he releases it.
Premier Danielle Smith, press conference
What she said, and didn't say
Let's parse what the premier said and didn't say.
She uncharacteristically stumbled and misspoke a few times, and didn't seem to bother to correct where she misspoke, but I think the gist is clear.
Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams.
She confirmed that the government is planning on extending the existing school book ban to public libraries, and that the change will be led by Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams.
It appears these changes will be made by ministerial order and regulation rather than amendments to the Libraries Act.
She highlights that some, very few, public libraries are co-located with elementary schools, and that's what's driving this push.
There's no clarity whether these restrictions would apply only to those co-located libraries, or if it would indeed be a provincewide rollout.
She also doesn't clarify if she has the intention of expanding the scope of the order banning content in schools to include a wider variety of subject matter and forms as part of these changes.
The real danger
So, is she tomorrow just going to Fahrenheit 451 every printed page in the province?
No.
But that's not the real danger here.
What's dangerous is building a framework where independent public institutions like libraries have the mechanisms to restrict and censor at the direction of the government.
What's dangerous is using current government sensibilities as legislated morality, and outlawing thought and art that differs.
The danger is using the straw man of showing pornography to children in order to build consent for the implementation of systems that Orwell and Bradbury warned us about.
Professional librarians have shared knowledge and enabled curiosity in our province for generations.
This wouldn't be the only system that Danielle Smith has torn down to appease her separatist, conspiratorial base, to the detriment of Albertan society.
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