Good morning.

On Thursday, the Alberta government rolled out its plan to restrict books in school libraries that the province believes are sexually explicit.

Education and Childcare Minister Demetrios Nicolaides issued a ministerial order that all books deemed explicit must be removed by October and that school boards must create or update policies to meet the province’s new safeguards.

While he stressed that there are currently “zero standards” to select appropriate content for libraries, the new rules are not about a specific book or author.

“This is never and was never about banning books or specific authors,” Nicolaides said.

“We believe that students should be curious, inquisitive and exploratory about their world without encountering sexually explicit content.”

The new policies apply to all public, separate, francophone, charter and independent schools, but the ministerial order will not affect material selected by teachers for things such as novel studies. Religious texts or scriptures, such as the Bible, will also not be affected.

The debate over what is age-appropriate in school libraries is a hot-button issue in some circles and has led to several legal challenges in recent years, particularly in the United States.

In Alberta, the debate came to the fore in May when Nicolaides said a group of parents had found sexually explicit content in schools, prompting the provincial review. On Thursday, he said 80,000 people provided feedback on the issue through online surveys.

Joseph Jeffery, chair of the non-profit Canadian School Libraries, said he fears Alberta could be setting the stage for further restrictions on books in the future.

“It’s an incredibly slippery slope that we don’t have full clarity on the exact books that Alberta wants to ban – and let me be blunt, this is a ban," Jeffery, who is also a teacher-librarian in British Columbia, said in an interview.

Meanwhile, the province is still mired in a fight to determine its place in Canada.

Premier Danielle Smith, who has not explicitly denounced the Alberta separatist movement, remains focused on the province’s grievances with Ottawa – a position The Globe and Mail editorial board took issue with this week.

On Monday, Smith and Ontario Premier Doug Ford signed two memorandums of understanding saying U.S. President Donald Trump ’s trade war has made it critical for the two provinces to work together.

The non-binding MOUs include provisions for building rail lines, using Ontario steel, connecting Ontario’s Ring of Fire region, critical mineral mining projects and processing facilities to Western Canadian ports, as well as the construction of pipelines that would connect new and existing refineries there to Alberta oil and gas producers.

“The world changed in November, and I think Canadians understand that we’ve got to start acting like a country. We’ve got to start supporting each other,” Smith said, referring to Trump’s re-election last fall.

Late Thursday evening, Trump threatened to bump tariffs on Canadian imports to 35 per cent on Aug. 1, continuing his haphazard approach to trade negotiations.

This is the weekly Alberta newsletter written by Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.