Photo by Moose Photos/ Pexels.com
On November 6, most Canadian provinces switched their clocks one hour back to daylight standard time – we have turned back our clocks yet again. From my observations, DST does not seem popular to me, and I don’t understand the necessity of switching time in modern society. Why are we still doing it?
In 2020, Ontario passed the Time Amendment Act to stop changing the clocks twice a year. However, the legislation will only be enacted if New York and Quebec follow. If we were to ditch time change without New York, Ontario’s commercial advantage benefited from its proximity to New York City may be influenced.
In March 2022, The U.S. Senate approved the Sunshine Protection Act to make daylight saving time (DST) permanent starting in 2023. Ontario is finally a step closer to abandoning this obsolete practice. However, the Time Amendment Act is conditional upon both New York state and Quebec’s approval of making DST permanent. We cannot do it without getting Quebec on board.
The Quebec government has indicated that they do not oppose the idea in principle but discussions are needed in 2020. Two years later, the government of Quebec is still open to making DST permanent in Quebec, though it doesn’t seem to be a priority. With that context, I officially experienced my first winter and winter sunsets at 5 PM in Toronto.
Today, fewer than 40% of countries (about 70 countries) in the world observe DST, with the majority of the observing countries being located in North America and Europe. In North America, each province or state switches time at 2 A.M. at their local time, whereas in Europe, most countries switch time at 1 A.M. UTC time. Meanwhile, countries in Asia and South America do not change their clock twice per year but they used to.
Rewind to the beginning
Due to my dislike of the concept, I did some digging and found that DST was first proposed by George Hudson from New Zealand in 1895 because that would afford him more after-work hours of sunshine in the summer. However, fellow New Zealanders were likely fine with not having the extra sunlight in the summer and didn’t take his suggestions.
Being the nerd that I am, I also found that In 1905, a British builder William Willett proposed a scheme that led to the clocks being set ahead 20 minutes on each of the four Sundays in April and switching time back with the same method in September. His plan of switching 8 times a year caught the attention of a British parliamentarian, Robert Pearce. The first daylight saving bill in the world was then introduced to the House of Commons in 1908 and drafted in 1909. Most farmers weren’t sold, and the bill was never made into law.
The idea resurfaced in 1915 when the German government began to find ways to save energy during World War I, as they needed a way to reduce the use of energy and conserve scarce resources like fossil fuels. DST then naturally became the solution, because of the additional daylight during working hours. They believed it would encourage people to cut energy use on artificial lights.
The Great War probably enabled the popularization of DST globally, but looking into the history of DST in Canada, it seems to have started before the war in Port Arthur, Ontario (now known as Thunder Bay) in 1908. Followed by Regina in Saskatchewan in 1914 and Winnipeg and Brandon, Manitoba in 1916. Later, DST was formally introduced in 1918 and ceased by the federal government when World War I ended. The practice was later resumed during World War II, and DST was used through the years of war in Canada.
Strange times
Not all Canadian provinces observe DST. For example, Yukon is on daylight time year-round, while Saskatchewan is on Central Standard Time (UTC -6) year-round without observing DST. However, the city of Lloydminster – located at the border of western Saskatchewan and eastern Alberta, only keeps Central Standard Time during the summer months and switches to Mountain Standard Time (UTC -7) during winter. In other words, they “created” their own daylight saving practice by following Alberta’s winter time.
To further the confusion, Alberta’s summer time (Mountain Daylight Time) and Saskatchewan’s year-round time (Central Standard Time) are both UTC -6. This has possibly caused confusion about thinking Saskatchewan is in “daylight time” (but name it “standard time”) for some people, since there are currently two names for UTC -6.
Canada is not alone in its peculiarity, there are other countries with interesting time zones as well. For example, China only has one time zone for the entire country even though they’re the world's 3rd largest country by landmass.
Queensland, like Lloydminster in Saskatchewan, is the white elephant in Australia that doesn’t observe DST. During winter, when AEST (UTC +10) is used, both Queensland and Victoria are in the same time zone. However, Victoria moves their clock forward one hour during summer when ADST (UTC +11) is observed, and that is why Melbourne is one hour ahead of Brisbane during half the year, even though it is geographically behind Brisbane. Quoting a friend from Australia – “As someone who is notoriously terrible at time zones, daylight saving time makes it worse… I like the concept however… it’s nice to have sunlight till 8 pm.”
Sunsets in Spain
Four years ago, I spent my summer (and almost all my savings from my part-time work at the time) to stay in southern Spain for 2 months to discover the traces of the ornament of the world and the glory of Al-Andalus in the olden days. Everything was different from where I lived at the time (Hong Kong). From the language they speak and the way they greet, to the seemingly eternal peace of the Iberian morning and sunset.
Spain was a new world to me, and although it can be my over-fantasization of the new land I ended up in for 2 months that created such illusions about the environment I was exposed to. However, with my newfound understanding of time zones, I might not have been completely wrong about the sunrise and sunset there; To understand this, we need to explore the story behind the reason why the sunset of Spain is at 9 PM. It isn’t simply my obsession with Spain – it is politics and history.
In the 1940s, while Nazi Germany and the Axis were waging war against the Allies, Hitler looked towards Spain’s Fascist dictator, Francisco Franco as another source of support. Spain was embroiled in a Civil war which led to the ruin of much of the country in the late 30s, and they didn’t have much to offer. Without many tangibles to offer to reciprocate Hitler’s support in the Spanish Civil war, Franco’s government moved the nation’s clock one hour ahead to be in the same time zone as Nazi Germany as a gesture. Spain has been in that time zone since.
Geographically speaking, Spain should be in the same time zone as Portugal, Britain, and Ireland, but the Canary Islands is the only Spanish territory that is in the “correct” time zone relative to its geographic location – Western European Time. Although Franco’s regime ended in the 70s, the time zone oddity became one of their lasting legacies and the consequence brought by bad actors continues to haunt the life of people in Spain for generations.
Epilogue
The initial reason for writing this article was to express my frustration with the inconvenience brought on by the time changes imposed on me and the molasses of the policy-making process surrounding daylight saving time. It eventually turned into a month-long study of the global time system, the historical and global events which caused the current state of our time system to complete this short article.
How we represent time plays a significant role in the modern world; Its construction is intertwined with interests and conflicts between territories on both the local and global scale. Ontario may never get to permanently abandon the practice of this biannual time-shifting ritual. I will leave you with one final question: if we were to ditch the daylight saving time in Ontario, would you prefer Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) or Eastern Standard Time (EST)?
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