School flag policy delay needed for more clarity, says Alberta premier Danielle Smith

New rules restricting flags in Alberta schools will be in place by January following a needed pause to develop more clarity about the changes, says Premier Danielle Smith.

The planned legislation — initially targeted for September — could produce “unintended consequences” if the province “raced ahead” with its implementation, she said Saturday.

“We want to take some time to make sure that we understand what are the kind of flags, how are they being used, what are the exemptions that they want to see,” Smith said on her call-in radio show.

“That’s why we’ll take a couple more months to identify that, make sure that everybody is on board with the approach we’re trying to take and the reasons we’re trying to take.”

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The government announced earlier this month that it was postponing the adoption of some new school policies , including limits on what flags can be displayed in schools.

Other proposed changes announced last spring include prohibiting school boards from issuing statements or taking position on political and social topics, and ensuring school authorities ensure “neutral and impartial” learning environments.

Smith suggested the announced flag restrictions were a source of confusion. She did not indicate if other changes would also be delayed, or dropped.

“What we observe is sometimes when you put a policy in place, in an abundance of caution, everybody implements it in a way that has vicious compliance. People get angry and it’s not what we intended.

“What we intend is don’t want to have flags that are clearly trying to demonstrate some kind of ideology or some kind of political positioning on international conflicts. We don’t want those creating discomfort in a classroom, and so that’s where we’re going right now.”

Smith cited the example of a school in her riding of Brooks-Medicine Hat that displays the home-country flags of students arriving from outside Canada.

“I don’t want that display taken down. That’s not hurting anybody. It’s actually important for the celebration of the community,” she said.

The premier also said school officials could “inadvertently” believe sports team flags would be banned, even though draft regulations on flag displays obtained by Postmedia showed those would be permitted.