Danielle Smith is scheming to extend her book ban to all libraries provincewide.
The premier's other heated rivalry.
Now that the premier is moving on to the next level of her heated rivalry with books, you probably don't have a lot of time left to exercise your freedom to read before Smith yanks the books off the shelves and dumps them into her own personal lake of fire.
The school book ban
The UCP rolled out their extremely unpopular and haphazard school book ban last year. It would have seen over 200 titles like Atlas Shrugged, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Color Purple removed from school shelves.
But international blowback to their Orwellian policy forced them to back off just a little bit and make their censorship look a little bit more moderate.
Currently, as of January 5th, schools in the province must restrict and remove any books with illustrations or drawings of any sexual acts, and provide a process for parents and community members to request the removal of books they deem pearl-clutchable.
Effective January 5, 2026, a school authority is required to implement the following standards respecting the selection, availability and access of school literary materials:
(a) The school authority must ensure that school literary materials containing any explicit visual depiction of a sexual act are not accessible or available to children or students in a school…
…a member of the community with a direct connection to the school, to request that the school authority review, change the access to or availability of, reconsider or remove specific school literary materials in a particular school for reasons related to section 2(a) of these Standards.
Public libraries are next
The revised ministerial order doesn't apply to a public library as defined by the Libraries Act.
These Standards do not apply to
(a) a public library as defined in the Libraries Act,
Yet, that's about to change.
Multiple sources have confirmed to me that the UCP has been drafting direction and are preparing to force all libraries provincewide to develop strategies to remove, restrict, and ban any materials that the UCP doesn't want you to see.
Like many of the other anti-democratic and Charter-violating pieces of legislation that Danielle Smith has written for her base, this too will be framed as “protecting our children.”
Children who, notably, aren't even allowed unattended without adult supervision in a library anyway.
Freedom of information and equal public access to education have always been cornerstone to our libraries and our democracies.
Libraries inspire in our kids the single best gift possible: a curiosity for learning.
I guess the UCP's fiscal mismanagement in this budget is bad enough that they'd rather pick an international fight with Margaret Atwood than talk about their record.
Happy Freedom to Read Week, team.
I hope it's not our last.
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Part 2 · Feb 26, 2026
Danielle Smith confirms she plans to extend UCP book ban to public libraries
Danielle Smith confirmed she plans to extend the UCP book ban to public libraries, days after my video breaking the news.
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