The Alberta government’s newly tabled Bill 25, An Act to Remove Politics and Ideology from Classrooms, arrives wrapped in the language of neutrality.

The promise is deceptive: teachers and school boards will be “impartial,” classrooms will be “balanced,” and students will be shielded from political or ideological influence. But anyone who has spent time in a real classroom knows education is not a sterile exercise. It is an encounter with ideas — messy, contested, sometimes uncomfortable — and that is precisely what makes it transformative.

What troubles me most about Bill 25 is not its stated goal but its likely effect — government-imposed censorship. By insisting on a rigid, state‑defined notion of “neutrality,” the legislation risks stripping teachers of the ability to do what the best educators have always done: challenge students to think critically about the world around them. Drawing on my own experience, I know how important this is.

In my final year of high school, I took two courses taught........

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