Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says if the Edmonton Public School Board (EPSB) needs help determining the correct criteria for banning books, the government is willing to "hold their hand through the process."This comes after a banned books list was released by EPSB, banning sexually explicit books, such as Gender Queer and Two Boys Kissing, but also classics, like 1984 and The Great Gatsby for students K-9. When the Western Standard asked Smith whether the EPSB was banning these non-sexually explicit books to point the finger at the government Smith responded stating, "I think that they've overreached on this policy.""They've obviously put books on there that were never intended to be targeted books."."But I think we need to exercise a little judgment here.""I think we made it super clear the things that prompted this policy, and we need to be a bit more graphic.""There's lots of other images, but that's the point, graphic images depicting the kind of acts that I just showed in the video are not appropriate for elementary school kids." "That's our starting point, and if we need to refine the policy with the school boards because they're not understanding it, then we will go through that with them," Smith stated..Prompted by questions on the EPSB ban, Smith's team showed the sexually explicit images from the books being referenced on screen.Accompanying the 15-second display which should graphic scene of oral sex, Smith added, "We are trying to take graphic pornographic images out of elementary schools so that the kids are not exposed to age inappropriate material.""I know that the cameras probably can't print it on the evening news tonight without probably facing some kind of Broadcast Standards Council complaint, and I know that I would get delisted from Facebook for showing these kinds of images because of photographic content.""That is what we are trying to address.""Please take a look at it, and might I invite all of the school trustees to take a look at it too," she suggested. .John Hilton-O'Brien, Executive Director of Parents for Choice, stated EPSB is "engaging in some malicious compliance.""Parents were concerned that there are graphic novels in the schools that contain visual graphic representations of children having sex and adults sexually abusing children, and we don't think that those are developmentally appropriate to be shown to children.""The Alberta government did their own research and agreed that this was a problem, and they issued themselves an order to clear this.""When they're trying to equate classic works of literature with what can only be described as the worst sort of pornography," he added."My question for the Edmonton Public School Board is then this: why would you rather ban classic works of literature than control the supply of pornography to the children of your schools?"."Why would you rather ban classic literature than protect children?"
