Western Standard - May 30, 2025


Sex cartoon books in the school library？ Ottawa is the enabler


Episode Stats

Length

22 minutes

Words per Minute

142.45068

Word Count

3,271

Sentence Count

98

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

This week on the Western Standard, we talk about graphic novels with explicit sexual depictions in Alberta elementary school libraries, and who are the gatekeepers in the system that keeps them there? Guest: John Hilton O'Brien, Executive Director of Parents for Choice in Education.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, a weekly politics show
00:00:22.020 of the Western Standard. It is Thursday, May the 29th. The story this week is that there
00:00:27.240 are graphic novels with explicit sexual depictions in Alberta elementary school libraries.
00:00:35.080 Now, we're not putting anything on the screen, but trust me, we're not talking about pen-ups.
00:00:39.360 We're talking about well-drawn fantasies depicting teenagers in sexual activity, and in some
00:00:45.240 cases with adults, both gay and straight. And the provincial government wants to know
00:00:50.500 what Albertans think about it. There is a survey that you can answer if you want to
00:00:56.360 see what we're talking about, you can preview these images when you take that survey. With me
00:01:03.080 today in the Western Standards John Galt studio is John Hilton O'Brien, the Executive Director
00:01:08.480 of Parents for Choice in Education. Welcome, John. Well, thank you very much for having me,
00:01:14.080 Nigel. Oh, you're so welcome. It's good to see you. Now, John, you've been, this frankly seems
00:01:20.200 incredible that there would be pornographic
00:01:22.360 material in
00:01:24.080 elementary school libraries.
00:01:26.260 When you were at school, when I was at school,
00:01:28.200 anybody who'd ever tried to pull off
00:01:30.100 anything like that would have fired me and even have
00:01:32.020 gone to jail. Something has
00:01:33.980 obviously changed, but
00:01:36.200 can you give us some
00:01:38.040 scope of the problem?
00:01:39.980 What exactly are we talking about?
00:01:41.840 At least comic books, graphic novels,
00:01:43.960 and how many are there?
00:01:46.340 Let's then talk about who's the
00:01:48.000 gatekeeper in the system.
00:01:49.080 all right go ahead tell us about it first of all it's not just graphic novels there are other books
00:01:55.440 that are at least verbally revealing and what a graphic novel is it's like a comic book but where
00:02:02.800 a comic book serializes things over several issues a graphic novel combines it all together
00:02:08.860 to make one complete story usually the qualities are better it's better bound the art is usually
00:02:17.100 better in a graphic novel as well so again is this all over the place it seems largely so so
00:02:28.900 what happened is a couple of years ago a group of volunteers that are affiliated with parents
00:02:35.300 for choice and education that call themselves the sidewalk education gang started doing some
00:02:41.720 research because we knew that these books were available. We had anecdotes about them in schools,
00:02:48.680 so they decided to see if they could prove it. And they amassed a file with quite a number
00:02:55.300 of references where they could pinpoint exactly where a given book was in a library and say,
00:03:02.760 this is really here, in some cases with photos of it on the shelf. Last fall, a lot of this
00:03:09.120 information made its way to the Ministry of Education. The minister, of course, can't take
00:03:14.440 any of this for granted, so he had the department go check into it. And they say in a number of
00:03:21.520 cases, I think it's 46, they found that there were in fact a book like this, and I'd hesitate to use
00:03:28.880 the name pornographic, but at least explicit graphically sexual material was in a real school
00:03:35.840 library in grades K to nine. And they were particularly concerned about its access to
00:03:43.200 children as young as first grade, which is as young as five years old.
00:03:48.560 So you're saying that in the 46 instances that they were able to check, which is not in, what is
00:03:55.920 a thousand schools in Alberta? This is not an exhaustive survey, this is a sampling.
00:04:01.320 When they sampled, they found 46 books in elementary school libraries.
00:04:06.280 And they took that as a sign that perhaps we need to have some sort of policy that helps you decide as a librarian when a book is or is not appropriate for your school library.
00:04:19.340 Now, I think probably some viewers are still reeling with what we're saying here because it does seem so unbelievable.
00:04:27.580 can you just like what sort of titles do these books have and without getting them into graphic
00:04:35.220 detail so to speak uh what are they about there's books like gender queer or flamer
00:04:41.140 i believe the department identified 10 particular graphic novels they were concerned with
00:04:47.520 and these are framed as coming of age stories but the way they're done up lays heavy emphasis
00:04:55.780 on the sexual aspect of it and there's a concern that due to what the author notices
00:05:02.500 we're talking about things that are really focusing the reader's attention on the sexuality
00:05:08.980 and of course in ethical criticism in literature you can never omit the context that these are
00:05:15.940 done in the context of trying to promote alternative sexual and gender minorities okay
00:05:23.380 who would promote that sexualization of children
00:05:29.940 who could also get it past the library gatekeepers.
00:05:35.940 I mean, I would think that if you want to put a book in a school library,
00:05:39.980 first of all, it's not your decision.
00:05:41.240 It's the decision of the librarian or a committee or somebody, but not you.
00:05:46.500 uh i mean how do how do books get into libraries and how did this slip past the screen well federal
00:05:54.560 and provincial governments have paid substantial grant monies to advocacy organizations that are
00:06:01.380 locally looking to normalize sexual and gender minorities is this heritage canada amongst others
00:06:08.840 so this is where stephen gilbert just ended up yes i suppose it would be it is yes okay i had not
00:06:15.560 made the connection myself. But in any case, teachers associations get very much into the act
00:06:22.960 in across Canada. This is not just an Alberta problem by any means. And so if you look, say,
00:06:30.340 at the PRISM toolkit for this that the ATA puts out, you have a note there from Senator Christopher
00:06:38.100 Wells that mentions how he made a book that's available online on how to create, how did he
00:06:48.080 put it? It was an inclusive library. And so the ATA encourages teachers to form committees for
00:06:59.780 diversity, equity, and human rights, I think they call them. And those are expected to press for
00:07:07.040 what they call inclusive materials in libraries, including these books. So there's quite a number
00:07:14.160 of people who are working on getting these books into school libraries. Well, you mentioned Senator
00:07:18.720 Wells. For the benefit of viewers who may not be as familiar with him as we are, who is he?
00:07:26.160 Oh, Senator Wells was a very prominent advocate for sexual and gender minorities,
00:07:32.880 did a lot of work in psychology, generally using survey methods to press the issue,
00:07:40.960 and he's very famous as an activist.
00:07:44.080 And he was appointed by which Prime Minister?
00:07:46.480 By Prime Minister Trudeau this past fall. He is one of Alberta's senators now.
00:07:51.600 And presumably this book that you referred to that he wrote,
00:07:54.880 he wrote before he became a senator.
00:07:57.040 yes this so that was actually uh that that was a positive when they were reviewing who they should
00:08:04.320 make a yes i'm sure that's the case the federal government seems to have had a a great interest
00:08:13.280 in this well that's that is interesting because although i don't know too many people of that
00:08:19.040 persuasion the few that i know just roll their eyes when they hear about this they don't want
00:08:24.240 any part of it. They don't want to be associated with it. They don't think these books should be
00:08:28.960 in school libraries. I'm sure the parents aren't getting together to advocate for this,
00:08:36.640 but we do have the federal government advocating for it. Well, of course.
00:08:41.120 Well, what the hell is going on? Well, the federal government does hope to
00:08:47.360 be able to get enough influence to get votes. It's an opportunity for distributing political
00:08:55.040 patronage through the grant system. And people who owe you for the grants they've received are
00:09:01.440 always going to be on your side. They're always going to be your advocates.
00:09:06.320 Well, I could try advocating for something else, couldn't I? You would think so.
00:09:11.440 there these books probably aren't a very good idea back in 07 the american psychological
00:09:19.040 association did a special task force on the sexualization of children and they found that
00:09:25.440 children who were prematurely sexualized that is exposed to the idea of people as sexual objects
00:09:32.640 primarily so people taken primarily as sexual interests they found that these people these
00:09:40.160 children would exhibit effects similar to actual sexual abuse very concerning negative outcomes
00:09:49.760 across a variety of psychological domains and they were studying the effects of media
00:09:56.320 and their conclusion was that media was not intense enough to produce these effects yet
00:10:02.960 but they weren't looking at schools and in schools when you put a book on a school library shelf
00:10:11.480 there's only so much space you're taking something else off it's a deliberate choice
00:10:17.040 and so material presented in a school and in a library has the stamp of authority
00:10:24.780 when they see this on the shelf children are being told this is how you should think this is who you
00:10:32.420 should be or at least this is okay it's more than okay there's a stamp of approval that amounts to
00:10:40.400 teacher set and it's a problem when we look at things like the psychology of moral development
00:10:49.500 What we find is that there's some agreement that teenagers, both in their early teens, let alone children, and even in their late teens, are very much driven by what is socially acceptable.
00:11:08.480 Convention matters to them.
00:11:10.320 And so when we're putting this in that context, even if it didn't have official support, then they would be inclined to take this as morally right.
00:11:26.980 It's perhaps beyond the scope of this discussion to ask why the federal government would want to promote the sexualization of children.
00:11:36.460 But is that a conclusion that we can honestly draw from the fact that you have a ministry within the government giving money to activists for, well, I guess they're mostly gay activists, but the books themselves seem to be gay and straight.
00:11:58.200 So that's not wholly the issue.
00:12:00.600 i'm looking to see what the the public interest is in in promoting the sexualization of children
00:12:09.700 do you have a theory okay so this isn't really uh about promoting sexual and gender minorities
00:12:18.340 in our view the real problem here is that it is about being able to offer political patronage
00:12:26.540 which secures one's spot a bit in the firmament of Ottawa, as it were.
00:12:32.840 The more grants and poorly sourced contracts you can put out,
00:12:37.640 the more powerful you are because the more advocates you have.
00:12:42.080 And that is probably what this is about.
00:12:44.680 The fact that this is all related to promoting alternative sexual or gender ideas
00:12:52.820 may in fact be largely beside the point this is just a reason for promoting oneself or promoting
00:13:03.860 the government's ability to give grants. What's really happening with all of this is we have
00:13:09.660 bureaucrats and politicians who put up the image of someone who's vulnerable in some way like a
00:13:18.720 sexual or gender minority. And they exploit that for political power. There was an activist once
00:13:26.500 upon a time called Saul Alinsky, who criticized this as political pornography, because you're
00:13:33.480 exploiting the image of someone without power to get more power for yourself.
00:13:39.160 Well, he was recommending it. Alinsky was absolutely criticizing it.
00:13:43.420 I mean, he was a revolutionary of the 1960s, wanted to tear everything down and restore it.
00:13:49.980 Mr. Alinsky is widely misunderstood, and he criticizes the left very harshly. He is not
00:13:57.260 himself a leftist. And in fact, at one point he said to have worked as a union buster.
00:14:04.460 So the fact that some of his disciples put it to different use is not Alinsky's problem.
00:14:11.340 What was his book?
00:14:12.140 He wrote two books, one of them called Reveille for Radicals and another called, oh my goodness,
00:14:20.460 Rules for Radicals. And in fact, he was encouraged to write those books by a friend by the name of
00:14:28.680 Jacques Maritain. Jacques Maritain was one of the architects of what's called the Christian
00:14:33.800 Democratic Union, a conservative party in Europe. Okay, we may hear from readers with a different
00:14:39.960 view of Saul Alinsky's books but I stand corrected if that's in fact when he was satirizing the left
00:14:46.520 when he wrote Rules for Radicals. Let's get back on to the pornography thing. What is the
00:14:51.240 provincial government looking to do? The provincial government is just taking input right now and
00:14:58.680 what they seem to want to do is to help provide a framework by which school boards can decide
00:15:05.800 what books are going into their libraries make no mistake there will still be arguments about
00:15:11.480 books after this and you will still see things like catcher in the rye they're not going to be
00:15:17.720 taking books off of school shelves but they will be having a conversation about what's appropriate
00:15:25.480 and what's not where is the line to be drawn and they won't be doing that without talking
00:15:32.680 to school boards and librarians either i i just can't see what there is to discuss here
00:15:39.480 john you have a you have a graphic knowledge a graphic novel with a couple of teenagers depicted
00:15:48.600 having sex straight or gay either way that doesn't belong in an elementary school i'm 0.95
00:15:54.600 not saying it should be banned i mean you still get it at uh at a bookshop if you've got to have
00:15:59.800 it but it doesn't belong in a school library and i don't think you think that either oh absolutely
00:16:07.880 so so what's where's where does the provincial government see the discussion well i understand
00:16:13.160 that the provincial government has already noted these books to the school boards and more
00:16:18.600 importantly to their superintendents and it's most likely that these particular books are
00:16:24.200 being taken off of the main shelves as we speak but more are being produced every day
00:16:31.560 and there are still going to be activists trying to get their pet projects into school libraries
00:16:38.000 that's the concern of the provincial government at this point not these particular books but
00:16:44.360 all of them that we're concerned about and not just the graphic novels either how do we make
00:16:51.440 decisions about what books belong on what school shelves there's a much larger conversation taking
00:16:58.480 place here and when that's done i'm sure it will serve as best practices across the country we're
00:17:04.880 just the first to notice the problem confirm that it exists and start to do something about it
00:17:11.680 you see i i forget who it was it might have been james dobson who said but somebody said years ago
00:17:19.360 you know don't ask me to define pornography but i know it when i see it
00:17:24.480 and it seems you were you were a little delicate about using the word pornography you preferred
00:17:30.960 sexually explicit fair enough i may not be able to define it but again i know sexually explicit
00:17:37.920 when i see it and when you take the survey and you have a quick look at what the provincial
00:17:42.880 government has put there for you to draw your conclusions upon you're gonna say that doesn't
00:17:48.160 belong and why do we have to go through a process like this to to determine what is kind of obvious
00:17:58.080 well part of the question is whether the minister of education wishes to dictate
00:18:03.600 all contents of all school libraries everywhere in the province or whether he thinks that your
00:18:10.000 local school board should have a hand in that so that's part of the concern i imagine he's also
00:18:17.280 trying to avoid blowback but underlying that concern even if the minister was abolishing
00:18:24.320 all school boards there would still have to be some basic lines of where do we define this as
00:18:32.720 starting so clearly sexually explicit materials should probably not be in any school libraries
00:18:41.040 at any grade but some things are also going to be inappropriate for junior high elementary school
00:18:48.720 beyond that and they can't just go this book is banned because what about next week's book
00:18:57.200 it's brand new and it's on the shelves all of a sudden that's the minister's concern
00:19:02.480 i see well he's i i see it's a sticky one but as i said sometimes we seem to spend a lot of time
00:19:11.040 Somebody has to be responsible for what is permissible in school libraries, period.
00:19:17.980 And you have written a number of articles in the past
00:19:22.420 about how the education system actually works and who has input into it.
00:19:28.280 Not everybody who seeks input into the education system,
00:19:33.360 not everybody who runs for school board
00:19:37.960 It's necessarily working in the best interests of the children.
00:19:42.100 Sometimes there are other interests that they represent.
00:19:45.500 And you have written about this, so I get a little anxious when it is too far distributed.
00:19:51.760 I think we're almost out of time, so I'm going to let you wrap up the argument for us.
00:19:58.720 And then just tell us where to go to look at this survey.
00:20:03.900 The key problem here is that this is much bigger than the 10 books that the minister has
00:20:10.620 identified. These are simply very obvious cases. We need to look at the broader problem as well.
00:20:20.060 Where are we going to draw that line? One of my concerns is that there are a whole lot of
00:20:27.180 people who are referred to as experts they're bureaucrats they're employed by schools or
00:20:34.380 teachers unions or by advocacy groups probably by our tax dollars and they are going to write
00:20:41.500 articles they're going to send in their own feedback they're going to get every supporter
00:20:47.420 they have to just overwhelm this particular public engagement so that the minister feels he has no
00:20:56.060 choice but to kowtow to their demands the only solution is for as many people as possible to get
00:21:03.660 in on this survey and give this feedback if you go to the parents for choice website or to
00:21:10.940 articles that have been appearing in the western standard recently you'll find links to this
00:21:17.180 public consultation it's also on the department of education's home page and we need everyone we
00:21:24.460 can to go in and give reasoned feedback on this. John, Parents for Choice in Education, in 15 seconds
00:21:32.460 what do you do? What we do is we stand up for parents. Our object is to achieve educational
00:21:39.820 excellence through maximum parental involvement. What you have told us here this afternoon,
00:21:45.580 this evening, is staggering. It's that the federal government would be pushing something like this
00:21:51.100 and that they would find earnest, willing supporters
00:21:55.580 who would then try to browbeat the government of Alberta
00:22:01.760 into saying, yeah, it's okay if you want pictures
00:22:05.160 of this kind of sexual activity in the school libraries
00:22:08.880 where a 10-year-old can find it.
00:22:11.420 I think a lot of people just find this mind-blowing.
00:22:14.620 I do.
00:22:16.000 At least you and your colleagues in the Parents for Choice
00:22:19.840 and education are able to do something about it so we are going to encourage the viewers if they
00:22:25.780 feel strongly about this to find the survey we're going to put it up on the screen here in a moment
00:22:31.120 where the link is or you can go to the articles in the western standard that have recently been
00:22:36.200 published about this from jen hodson and myself and you can find it there and just click the link
00:22:41.980 and have a look say what you think and you will have done a good thing john thank you very much
00:22:48.480 for coming in today.
00:22:49.640 It's been a pleasure to see you here.
00:22:51.940 Thank you very much, Nigel.
00:22:55.040 For the Western Stant,
00:22:56.640 I'm Nigel Hannaford.