Santa's Snitch: The Shelf's Silent Surveillance
Elf on the Shelf at a local store - photo credit Kelly Allard
A Festive Parable of Petty Tyranny and Provincial Politics
If you feel a peculiar dread this December, a sense that the watchful eyes in your home report not to a workshop but to a whip, you are not alone. You have internalized a fundamental, political truth, now echoed from the highest office in the province:
"Unelected judges making decisions, without any oversight, and without having to go to the people to get the democratic endorsement of their view — that's not democracy".
Consider, then, the Elf on the Shelf. It is not a toy. It is the first, felt-covered agent of this doctrine, planted in your living room.
Twenty Years ago we were told it was a harmless tradition.
A “scout.”
A “helper.”
We welcomed this plush politburo member, believing its beady eyes were trained on our children’s minor transgressions to report to a benevolent, distant authority.
We were fools.
Have you not noticed?
The elf does not model good behavior.
It models anarchy.
The very “naughtiness” it polices, it performs.
It raids the pantry, strings toilet paper, coats the kitchen in flour. It rides the family dog without consent.
Do as I say, not as I do
The mantra of the hypocrite. The credo of the politician who believes their election absolves them of the rules that bind everyone else.
The elf sits in judgement by day, a silent sentinel of compliance. But by night? By night, it unleashes chaos, demonstrating that the rules it enforces do not apply to it. This is not Christmas magic. This is a masterclass in performative governance: the powerful performing transgression for the masses they simultaneously police.
And its political playbook is written in red felt and now recited in the legislature:
The Notwithstanding Clause is the Elf's Magic: When a court (the "unelected judge") says a rule has been broken, the province invokes its elf-magic—“notwithstanding”—and does it anyway. The rule of law is dismissed. The elected politician’s will is the only law.
Threatening the Recall Act is the "Naughty List" Purge: The citizen’s chance to say “this isn’t working” must be undermined. Why tolerate a process where the watched might, one day, watch back? The elf cannot allow itself to be removed from the shelf.
The "Double-Referendum" Gambit is the Relentless Night Move, now formally proposed in Bill 14. If at first your pet project doesn’t succeed with the citizens, try, try again—immediately. The government’s own Justice Statutes Amendment Act, 2024 (Bill 14) seeks to alter the Citizen Initiative Petition process to allow two referendums on the same subject, back-to-back, removing the mandatory five-year cooling-off period. It’s the political equivalent of the elf creating the same mess night after night until the will to clean it up is broken. The goal, as laid bare in the legislation, isn’t consensus; it’s compliance through exhaustion.
This campaign extends beyond votes to the very institutions designed as checks on power. A key, unsettling component of Bill 14 aims to shield members of professional regulatory bodies—like lawyers, engineers, and health professionals—from sanctions for their political activity. In practice, this could prevent bodies like the Law Society of Alberta from disciplining a member who, acting as an elected official, flagrantly undermines the rule of law or their professional ethical codes. It is a move to elevate political allegiance above professional standards, ensuring that the premier’s cohort operates without fear of censure from independent, expert bodies. Concurrently, there is a quiet war over political memory itself. The UCP—a party born of a merger with the explicitly anti-regulation Wildrose—has maneuvered to reclaim the historically resonant "Progressive Conservative" name, a move currently contested by the smaller Alberta Party. It is an attempt to launder a controversial political brand through nostalgia, severing the current government’s actions from its immediate ideological lineage and confusing the historical record for future voters.
I propose the terrifying, obvious truth:
The Elf on the Shelf does not report to Santa
Santa is a mythical figure of consistency and generosity; he would not endorse this.
No.
The elf’s nightly “flight” is to the seat of power that believes its election is a carte blanche for its whims. Its reports—on childhood fallibility and parental fatigue—are data points for a project far darker than a Naughty or Nice list.
Its destination?
The UCP headquarters.
The realm where the premier has plainly stated that the only legitimate authority is her own, and that any other—be it judicial, institutional, or constitutional—is an inconvenience to be overridden.
The elf is a primer.
It is preparing our children for a political reality where authority is whimsical, unaccountable, and proudly above the law. It teaches that the watchman makes the rules, breaks the rules, and decides all consequences.
Solely.
Without appeal.
This December, as you blearily reposition your family’s own junior authoritarian, understand what you are conditioning. You are not fostering magic. You are normalizing the core tenet of a burgeoning autocracy: that the elected are sovereign, not the law.
The only logical response is insurgency. “Accidentally” leave it in the path of the cat. “Forget” to move it. Let its magic “fade.”
Or better yet, retire it. Tell the children it was recalled for undermining constitutional democracy.
The real magic of the season—kindness, generosity, and a sacred respect for the independent rules that protect us from raw power—doesn’t require a snitch.
