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On Wednesday's special Buffalo Roundtable live stream, we discussed Danielle Smith's reaction to Edmonton Public Schools taking classic books like 1984 off of shelves in response to a ban on pornographic material in school libraries.

The premier's policy is clear that schools are to remove books with "sexually explicit content" from their libraries, however staff at some Edmonton-area public schools have taken it upon themselves to unnecessarily remove several classic books.

Smith took to social media to clarify her policy in clear terms for school staff who are acting overzealously in their book removal efforts.

"Get graphic pornographic images out of school libraries," wrote the premier, adding that schools should "Leave the classics on the shelves."

I’m going to be more explicit than usual so there is no misunderstanding this policy:

1. Get graphic pornographic images out of school libraries.

2. Leave the classics on the shelves.

3. We all know the difference between the items in 1 and 2. Let’s not play any more games in… https://t.co/q8C3utkZLl

— Danielle Smith (@ABDanielleSmith) September 2, 2025

Wyatt Claypool, host of The National Telegraph, criticized Edmonton Public Schools for engaging in "malicious compliance". 

"Specifically what the Edmonton Board of Education is doing is engaging in what you would call either the practitioner's veto or more specifically, malicious compliance," he said.

"They've been told to take inappropriate books off the shelves, and so they're going to read between all the lines that are not there in the order, and just say 'well we have to ban 200 books, we just have to ban all this stuff because there's something sexually inappropriate in it,'" Claypool continued.

All school boards in the province are required to remove sexually explicit content from libraries by October 1, 2025, following a July 10 ministerial order.