Saturday, March 03, 2007

Canada meekly follows US time change nonsense

I can't believe that, because the Americans have decided in their (somewhat suspect) wisdom that summer daylight-saving time is suddenly to start three weeks earlier than it used to, Canada is to meekly follow suit. Just another case of the USA belching and Canada saying "excuse me", say I.
Frankly, I find it hard enough to believe that, in this day and age, we still bother with it at all, based as it is on an outdated idea of daylight usage.
While reading about it, I found it interesting to note that there are some provinces, and even some individual towns, which have never bothered with daylight time. The good burghers of Saskatechwan for one (with the bizarre exception of Lloydminster and two other even smaller towns), and Nunavut Territory for another, never have to remember to change all the time-pieces in their houses twice a year, and they seem none the worse for it. The town of Creston in BC is another isolated example of western stubbornness and contrariness.
This is on a par, in my mind, with Newfoundland's preversity in setting its time zone at three-and-a-half hours behind GMT. There is something rather charming and whimsical about it.
I found some of the arguments for following the US somewhat trite, including worries about being "out of sync" and "maintaining a competitive advantage" for the tourism, travel and telecommunications industries. Are they suggesting that the hordes of tourists crossing the border from North Dakota into Manitoba or Maine to Nova Scotia (or any other route which happens to be within the same time zone) will change their minds if the clocks are different during this three week period?
Kudos to Creston for sticking to their guns and ignoring all this nonsense. And remind me never to visit Lloydminster.

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