Barry Litun wrote an interesting letter recently about the possibility of a permanent change to daylight savings time. I read this letter with great intrigue anticipating his support for our time to be on permanent daylight savings time.
To my dismay, reading further revealed he preferred standard time.
Barry seems to be worried about the amount of darkness in the morning and how late the sun would rise should we be on permanent mountain daylight time during winter months.
I’m sorry Barry, but your worries are pretty miniscule in the grand scheme of things. If you haven’t noticed, during winter, it’s already dark in the mornings anyway. People most likely wouldn’t care about the sunrise when they’re stuck in the office. Or trying to sleep after a nightshift.
The Alberta government ran a public survey in late 2019. The survey covered 141,000 Albertans and the overwhelming majority (91 per cent) prefer a permanent mountain daylight time. Albertans want longer summer evening daylight and to stop changing the clocks twice per year. Other jurisdictions throughout North America seem to be leaning towards permanent daylight hours as well.
If this means already dark winter mornings stay dark a little longer, then so be it. The goal on everyone’s mind is to stop messing with the time while keeping with daylight hours in the summer.
My personal preference? I agree with the outcome of the survey. Change is indeed coming to this contentious issue. It is not a question of if, but a question of when. Let’s be on the right side of history for it.
Let’s ditch the time changes and go permanent mountain daylight time.
Travis Beebe, Blackfalds