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鈥淲e are not trying to remove classics of literature,鈥� . 鈥淲hat we are trying to remove is graphic images that young children should not be having a look at.鈥� Accordingly, her government is now revising the ministerial order to focus on what the premier calls 鈥減ornographic images.鈥�

You may think this is a step in the right direction. Yet by exempting 鈥渃lassics鈥� from its censorship campaign, the Alberta government has only made clearer what many long suspected: that marginalized voices are the true objects of its attack.

Indeed, Smith doubled down on the government鈥檚 desire to ban the four graphic novels it had initially cited as problematic: Blankets, by Craig Thompson; Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel; Flamer, by Mike Curato; and Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe. Smith refers to these books鈥� sexual imagery (some of which is now displayed on a government website, divorced from all context) in support of what she presents as a commonsense position: 鈥淵oung children,鈥� she argues, should not be exposed to 鈥減ornography.鈥� What parent would disagree?

Let鈥檚 think about how Smith makes her argument: she claims 鈥測oung children,鈥� particularly, shouldn鈥檛 have access to these books, although nobody is suggesting they should (even on his own website, Curato recommends Flamer for readers 14 and up). Yet the Alberta mandate would ban them from schools provincewide, including high schools, meaning 17- and 18-year-olds would also be denied access. By using the spectre of 鈥測oung children鈥� consuming 鈥減ornography鈥� as a scare tactic, Smith obscures important developmental differences between age groups.

She also deploys a word intended to induce a jump-scare in parents鈥� hearts: 鈥減ornography.鈥� The premier would have us believe that the works she鈥檚 identified are 鈥減ornographic,鈥� something that鈥檚 again taken to be self-evident: Smith鈥檚 government has selected out-of-context images from the books in question to support her claim.

Of course, most of us understand that movies can contain nudity or sex without constituting 鈥減ornography.鈥� You can imagine how someone could deliberately misrepresent Titanic, for example, by creating a reel consisting only of sex and nudity found in the movie. Pornography is notoriously hard to identify, but legal definitions have long insisted that what matters is the overall intention of the work or the effect it produces, not the mere presence of sex in isolated scenes, sentences, or paragraphs.

Let鈥檚 be clear: under the guise of banning pornography, Smith is targeting serious and ambitious works of literary and graphic art. She wants deprive Alberta high-school students access to 鈥渙ne of the best graphic novels of all time,鈥� as the Guardian has called Blankets. She believes that Flamer 鈥� 鈥渁n essential book that shows readers that they are never alone in their struggles,鈥� according to the School Library Review 鈥� ought to be purged. With this gambit, Smith has desperately underestimated the degree to which Albertans value their freedom, including their children鈥檚 freedom to read.

Exempting 鈥渃lassics,鈥� then, is no solution, especially given there鈥檚 no consensus as to which texts should fall into that category (and besides, many so-called classics contain sexually explicit content anyway). Smith uses the term merely to sharpen what she sees as the distinction between 鈥減roper鈥� and 鈥減ornographic鈥� literature. Yet while the premier claims her government鈥檚 book ban has nothing to do with gender or sexual orientation, 鈥� while only a few could be called classics.

Despite appearing to have changed course, Smith is only paying lip service to literary tradition while continuing to focus on the censorship of marginalized voices, which her government appears to believe are contrary to Alberta鈥檚 socially conservative values. But imposing partisan values on the public via censorship is not the government鈥檚 job.

While politicians often attempt to justify book bans by appealing to 鈥減arental rights,鈥� these campaigns are an attack not only on the rights of parents but also on children鈥檚 rights and the freedom to read. Across Canada, we must stand against governments who would reduce our children to mere pawns in the never-ending culture wars.

Every parent cares about the media their kids consume, and educators and librarians have a responsibility to make thoughtful decisions about how to curate school libraries with age-appropriate content for all students. But those decisions must remain in the hands of educators and librarians, not partisan politicians who wouldn鈥檛 hesitate to liquidate library shelves of books they perceived as ideologically hostile.

It鈥檚 great that Alberta is no longer interested in banning 鈥渃lassics.鈥� It鈥檇 be better still if the government abandoned book bans altogether.