Organizers of a Freedom to Read Week event scheduled to take place at a Legion hall in Calgary on Monday night had to find a new venue at the last minute after the booking was cancelled by the legion – a circumstance that organizers say demonstrates the importance of marking the annual event in the first place.

The Freedom to Read Panel and Banned Books Open Mic, presented by the Writers’ Guild of Alberta, The Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC), and the Alexandra Writers’ Centre Society, had been planned in advance, with a deposit made in mid-January for the rental of Legion #264 in Calgary. The event was to feature a panel of authors and then an open mic where participants were encouraged to read from their favourite banned books. But just over a week before the event was scheduled to take place, organizers heard from the Legion via email that they would no longer be able to honour the contract for the rental.

In the email, the Legion said that “aspects of the event conflict with Legion policy, which requires alignment with current government regulations and guidelines” and suggested that the organizers try to book their event at Calgary’s Centre for Sexuality “as their organization aligns closely with advocacy initiatives similar to yours.”

Although no further detail was given by the Legion, TWUC believes the reversal was based on the Alberta government’s recent move to control the types of books that are accessible by students in the province’s schools. Last year, the province issued a ministerial order that called on schools to remove books with sexually explicit images from school libraries. Many of the books specifically targeted by this order are teen graphic novels depicting coming-of-age stories by queer creators and are LGBTQIAS2+ in nature.

At least one of the planned readings from the Calgary event involved LGBTQIAS2+ history.

Organizers were able to find a new venue despite the limited time, and the event will go ahead as planned at cSPACE Marda Loop on Feb. 23.

John Degen, CEO of TWUC, was bird watching when he received notice from a colleague that the Legion had cancelled the booking – which caused him to “swear loudly and scare all the birds away.”

“I think it’s a perfect storm of circumstance. We happened to be renting a Legion hall in a province where the government happens to be exercising a very heavy hand on controlling literature in schools and they can be quite forceful about their opinions,” Degen says. “That is a recipe for an organization to get nervous and make a mistake like this – and that’s what it is, it’s a mistake.”

Freedom to Read Week runs Feb. 22–28 this year. The annual week-long campaign celebrates the rights of Canadians to decide for themselves what they choose to read, and is co-led by Library and Archives Canada, the Canadian Urban Library Council, and the Ontario Library Association in partnership with the Book and Periodical Council. This year marks the event’s 42nd year.

Listings of more events being held across Canada to mark the event can be found online.

“In a way, because the event is still going on this evening, it’s a bit of a gift, it gives Freedom to Read Week week a little more attention,” Degen said Monday. “But it’s the kind of gift you don’t want because of what it says about the times we’re living in in North America in general and in the country specifically.” 

The Legion did not reply to Degen’s follow-up communication after they cancelled the rental agreement, but the general manager of the branch told CBC in an email that they cancelled the event after learning that attendees would be encouraged to contact their MLA about reversing the provincial government’s decision to remove certain books from schools.

“As an apolitical organization that does not host petitions, or political actions of this nature, the branch cancelled the booking,” the email said.

Another Legion hall in Alberta hosted an invitation-only event hosted by the United Conservative Party in August 2024.