Alberta introduces bill to curb youth access to sexually graphic images in public libraries

Alberta's provincial government is expanding its book ban from school libraries to all public libraries across the province.

The Alberta government is pushing through a sizable grab-bag of legislative changes starting Thursday, including directing libraries to control and separate visual materials deemed to depict sexually graphic acts so children and young teenagers don’t have access to them.

Bill 28, titled the Municipal Affairs and Housing Statutes Amendment Act 2026, would allow changes to three existing pieces of legislation: the Libraries Act, the Municipal Government Act and the Housing Act.

Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams, who introduced the bill at the Alberta legislature on Thursday – the day before the start of the Easter long weekend – said material containing sexually explicit images would be placed behind the library counter or in an area youth aged 15 and younger can’t access them.

“Pornographic material paid for by the taxpayer should not be in the access of children’s leisurely reading when they go in on an afternoon to a library,” Williams told reporters, adding that books and other material will not be banned as a result of the legislation. “I think parents expect that truly explicit, sexually explicit, pornographic material isn’t something that they’ll fall upon by accident.”

The legislation related to public libraries is an extension of new rules brought in by the government in the fall for school libraries.

The changes to the Library Act will affect 324 public libraries serving 99 per cent of residents in the province, the Coalition of Alberta Public Libraries said Thursday in a statement.

“CAP Libraries has been engaged in conversations regarding intellectual freedom with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and provincial representatives since fall 2025 but were not consulted on the changes announced today,” the coalition said.

It said polling it commissioned in January found that 82 per cent of respondents “trust their local public library to make appropriate decisions about available materials.”

Other changes to legislation as part of the bill include:

• getting rid of vacancy-style taxes for Albertans. The town of Canmore uses such a tax to help counter housing shortages;
• allowing cabinet, via approval of the lieutenant governor, to make regulations compelling a municipality to transfer control and operations of a utility to a public utility entity;
• the implementation of a universal code of conduct for municipal councillors;
• allowing charter schools access to municipal and school reserve land;
• allowing municipalities to show RCMP costs on a separate line of property tax notices;
• requiring municipalities to disclose the salaries of senior staff;
• allowing municipal councils to adopt policies to manage large, complex information requests; and
• easing approvals for low-risk projects, bringing in automated permitting and making approval timelines more transparent.

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