An election is taking place in Hungary right now, where Viktor Orbán, spiritual godfather to populist leaders on the right in countries across the Western world, is fighting for his political life. After 16 years in office, where he consolidated authority, stacked courts, enriched himself and his cronies and hollowed out the country’s institutions, he is in serious danger of losing the election. This is why MAGA luminaries like JD Vance have come out to support him. Closer to home, Alberta premier Danielle Smith is cribbing from Orbán’s playbook in every way she can in order to satisfy the separatists who control her party, and to keep herself in power. And that playbook includes turning a functional democratic state into an “illiberal democracy,” where targeting LGBTQ2S+ communities is part of the plan.

Last week, the Alberta government introduced Bill 25, which claims to take ideology out of schools, while also including rules that would ensure that no non-government flags were raised at schools, meaning Pride flags are very much on the hit list. The bill also ensures that teachers would be forbidden from taking any stances on “social or ideological issues” as part of class discussion, because Smith and her government are committed to strict “neutrality” in schools—and by neutrality, they mean a straight white male perspective that is deemed to be neutral. Of course, it bears reminding that effacing queer and trans people from schools is not a neutral act, but rather is very, very political. As a bonus, Smith—a self-professed “libertarian”—has set up a system by which students have increased incentive to start surreptitiously filming teachers in order to catch them in the act of saying things that Smith would find ideologically incorrect, which will quickly become a Soviet-style denunciation system, so good job there.

On Friday, her government tabled another omnibus bill that is supposed to update a number of provincial laws governing municipalities, but included in it are new restrictions for public libraries, which will force them to keep books that contain “sexually explicit images” in separate spaces where children under 15 aren’t able to access them. On top of that, new library inspector positions will be created in order to ensure that these rules are being enforced. If you thought this was actually concern about children accessing inappropriate materials, the province’s municipal affairs minister, Dan Williams, held up a copy of Gender Queer, a graphic memoir about exploring gender and sexuality, at his press conference as his proof of the kind of terrible things that they need to protect children from. They also insist, however, that this is not a book ban. We all know that it’s just state censorship of queer and trans materials. The fact that these changes are being implemented in omnibus bills make it harder for them to be debated, and the opposition in the legislature has fewer tools to split out such clauses from the bill.

@xtramagazine On Tuesday, Alberta education minister Demetrios Nicolaides tabled Bill 25, a sweeping “neutrality in education” bill that could result in Pride flags being banned from schools and teachers being censored from talking about “political” or “ideological” issues in the classroom. The bill amends the Alberta Education Act with a variety of new clauses and language, particularly around how “ideological” schools in the province can or should be. “School boards would be expected to stay focused on their core responsibilities and avoid taking positions on political or ideological issues that fall outside of their scope,” Nicolaides said in a press conference announcing the legislation. The law bans schools from flying or displaying flags other than the Canada or Alberta flags, including what teachers display in their classrooms. The bill requires that schools play the Canadian national anthem at least once a week. It also mandates that school boards and teachers not “take positions” on political or ideological issues. Is a Pride rainbow an “ideological symbol” according to the Alberta government? Is a trans flag? Is a picture of a gay couple? Could teachers get in trouble for displaying any of these in their classrooms? We break down what this could mean for LGBTQ2S+ students, teachers and families. #lgbtqnews #alberta #albertanews #prideflag #education ♬ original sound – Xtra Magazine

If this rings any bells, it’s because Orbán banned children being able to access queer and trans materials in Hungary as part of his 2021 laws banning the “display and promotion of homosexuality,” and in one case, a bookstore was fined thousands of dollars for selling a copy of Heartstopper—the most innocuous and utterly sexless gay romance (at least in the early volumes)—without a plastic foil wrapping. While Smith has not explicitly connected her censorship laws and book bans to any kind of Christian values, it cannot be overlooked that the separatists whom she is pandering to have a large Christian nationalist focus (along with white nationalism, and a propensity to believe conspiracy theories). She and her government have also been meeting with faith-based school groups, right-wing think tanks and so-called “parental rights” activists who have brought the lists of books that they want banned to her attention, and she has given them what they’ve been asking for.

As this is all happening, Smith also looks to be planning to gerrymander the electoral ridings in the province in advance of the next election to put her party at a structural advantage. When Smith decided to add new seats to the legislature last year, the bipartisan boundaries commission did their work of redrawing the maps, but a consensus was not achieved in how to do so—the chair and the two NDP-appointed members of the panel redrew the map in a way that would add urban representation because that is how the demographics in the province have shifted. But the UCP-appointed members of the board wrote their own minority report that would see urban ridings broken up into “rurban” hybrid ridings that contain small areas of urban area linked to surrounding rural voters so that the urban votes—which tend to be more progressive and would favour the provincial NDP—are swamped by conservative voters. (By contrast, the federal redistribution process is fully independent and not bipartisan, and the federal commissioners have not been afraid to call out attempts by sitting MPs to gerrymander their ridings to favour themselves in the past). Smith has not yet chosen which version of the report her government will adopt, but you can bet it’ll be the minority report that favours giving the UCP the advantage.

We cannot deny that liberal democracy itself is under attack in Alberta, under the guise of claims that Smith’s government is not only respecting democracy, but exercising more direct-democracy options. This includes the litany of referendum questions that will be put to Albertans this fall, many of which are xenophobic in nature and creating a permission structure to engage in state-sponsored racism. There will almost certainly be some kind of separation referendum question asked as well, as Smith has been constantly changing the rules to ensure that the courts are overridden and the path for these separatists is made easier. It’s still unclear whether it’s because she is a closet separatist herself, or whether she just hopes to use the results of that referendum to try and leverage even more concession from the federal government than she is already getting from Prime Minister Mark Carney (the list of which continues to grow, particularly when it comes to environmental laws).

Smith is also attacking the courts, trying to demand influence on how judges are appointed in the province so that she has more control over the process, and along the way, is curtailing the powers of those investigating the allegations of corruption, such as the power of the province’s chief electoral officer. Again, this all has echoes of Orbán’s playbook in turning Hungary into an “illiberal democracy.” This is the route Alberta is headed down, and it’s going to take a concerted effort for Smith’s opponents to break her increasing hold on power. It can be done—it looks like Orbán is about to head for defeat after so many years consolidating power. Now Smith’s opponents need to come together to ensure that it can happen in Alberta.