Twilight of the Year
There is a strange, unsettled stretch of time between Christmas and the new year.
The lights are still up, the bills are already due, and the future feels both imminent and abstract.
For progressive people in Alberta, this twilight feels especially heavy.
In the final days of the year, the Alberta government reached once again for the notwithstanding clause; our province’s favourite blunt instrument of Maple MAGA governance. Four times, right at the buzzer. How many more in the year ahead? How often will it be used before it’s no longer remarkable, just routine? At what point does Alberta stop resembling a province and start auditioning to be the 51st state?
South of the border, Donald Trump openly flirts with monarchy, declaring himself a future king, invoking war, power, and destiny with the confidence of a man who once promised to end conflicts and now seems to forget which ones he escalated. Meanwhile, Canada pledges billions more overseas, and our own Prime Minister assures us this is the cost of responsibility.
Everywhere you look, it’s doom and gloom.
And yet, this time of year is also when people make lists. Not the kind you hand to a bearded guy in a mall, but private ones. Intentions. Resolutions. Promises to themselves about who they’ll be next year, and what they’ll finally stop tolerating.
anyone else wanna wear cloaks for a week?
That contradiction; the dread and the hope, isn’t accidental.
If you feel unsettled right now, it may not be anxiety, depression, family tension, or even corporations squeezing you at the grocery store while shrinking what’s in the package. It may be something older than all of that.
Long before governments, religions, surveillance states, or data brokers, humans marked this time of year. The solstice mattered. The return of light mattered. There was a collective exhale, a temporary loosening of control, a ritual reminder that no authority lasts forever, and no darkness is permanent.
You can call it pagan if you want. You can call it pre-religious. You can call it genetic memory.
But something in us knows that this time, this twilight, is meant to be different.
Modern society has tried very hard to breed that out of us. Puritanism tried. Capitalism tried. Bureaucracy tried. Surveillance culture is trying right now. But maybe it’s impossible to erase something that’s coded deeper than law or doctrine.
Maybe the so-called “spirit of Christmas” isn’t Christian at all. Maybe it’s genealogical.
Maybe some of us can still feel the old signal: that when power becomes too centralized, too authoritarian, too disconnected from the people it governs, societies have historically corrected it. Sometimes peacefully. Sometimes not. Sometimes through elections, sometimes through recall, sometimes through public refusal to comply.
We still do this instinctively today, just with different tools. The CFIA culls ostriches to protect a population from avian flu. Societies cull bad leadership to protect themselves from rot. It’s not bloodlust, it’s regulation.
Whether it’s mass ostrich slaughter, war in Venezuela, Trump’s fantasy kingdom, recalling Justin Wright, or Premier Danielle Smith’s recurring corruption headlines and insider contracts, what matters most is where you act.
The greatest impact is almost always local.
If world politics are overwhelming, start closer to home. If federal politics feel untouchable, attend city council. Watch the legislature. Support local media. Learn enough to explain what’s happening to someone else who doesn’t have the time or energy to decode it all.
That’s accountability. And real conservatives, actual conservatives, not authoritarian cosplayers, used to believe in it too.
Maybe a recall is in order. Maybe an election. Both are expensive. But the alternative is already unaffordable, and it’s only getting worse. It won’t be long before affordability crises themselves are dismissed as conspiracies, just like they are elsewhere.
As for us at The Owl: we’re entering the new year by formalizing what we’ve always been. We’re filing the documents to become a non-profit. We’re forming a board of directors. That means Tommy is no longer “the boss,” and journalism in southeast Alberta becomes a shared responsibility, discussed openly, transparently, and in service of the people who live here.
Thank you to everyone who has been reading and watching for 15+ years.
We’re looking forward to 2026 being impactful and to the continued support of Medicine Hat, its businesses, and its beautifully inconvenient residents.
We will remain what we’ve always been:
trash pandas digging through dumpster fires, disturbing the peace (LOL), and finding the documents someone hoped would stay buried.
Because in the twilight of the year, and the twilight of democracy, that work matters more than ever.
