Ontario is set to move parts of the province’s northwest region to permanent daylight time in order to align with Manitoba, Indigenous Affairs Minister Greg Rickford told The Canadian Press.
Rickford said there is overwhelming consensus among municipalities, First Nations and businesses to make the time change permanent.
The province intends to make a regulatory change in the Time Act on Nov. 1 to allow regions west of the 90th meridian to align with Manitoba, he said.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced last month the province would stop twice-annual clock changes and stay on daylight time year-round in the central time zone, leaving it one hour ahead of the other Prairie provinces rather than aligned with them.
“That put northwestern Ontario, who sits in the central standard time zone, in a bit of a spot, to say the least,” Rickford said.
The province had three options, he said.
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One, the northwestern region could shift to eastern time to align with the rest of the province. Two, they could continue on with time changes, but then they’d be out of step with the rest of Ontario and Manitoba.
“The other option … we took by unanimous consensus, was to not change our clocks and go to what I’m calling Wab Kinew time,” Rickford said.
Much of the province’s northwest jumped into action after Kinew’s announcement to figure out a way forward. Rickford said the province reached out to municipalities, businesses and First Nations to get their thoughts.
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“What ended up coming back was overwhelmingly unanimous, 90 to 94 per cent from every survey,” he said.
New Democrat Sol Mamakwa, who represents the riding of Kiiwetinoong that is home to the majority of Ontario’s remote, fly-in First Nations, also helped figure out a way forward.
“After having brought the voices of our communities across the northwest to the table, we are happy the advocacy to observe daylight savings will be implemented permanently,” Mamakwa said in a statement.
“We are proud of our collaborative efforts to deliver what works for the North. We thank everyone who reached out and shared their thoughts on this important decision.”
British Columbia said in March that it was moving to permanent Pacific daylight time.
Alberta also switched to permanent daylight time this year in what it calls Alberta time, which means it now has the same time as Saskatchewan year round.
They will always do the opposite what people want. They do it on purpose just because they can.
give it a year or two, then they will switch back. It was tried in the States in the 70’s and failed.
Who cares? The Time in the GTA matters. The rest of the country is flyover land
Just get rid of Rickford
Rickford is absolute garbage.
Make the whole province have a uniform time, please! How can anyone in charge think to split the time into multi zones!! Keeping time is complicated enough!! Get practical, please!!!
Wab Kinew time?!? W in the A F.
This is confusing!
Is there anybody even half a brain in a government.
Fn wants one time , next new immigrants want a another time and so on
Because they are lemmings. One province makes a dumb decision to go to daylight savings all year instead of the scientifically better standard time, and they all join in.
Vivian i right, the time change is bad, but standard time would have pleased more people (and be better for our health)
Why would anyone ask natives? Are they not part of Ontario??? They should get the same treatment. BTW: calling the rest of Ontario “white people’ is showing your bias.
We should be looking at the sun to decide. Northwest Alberta is 1 hour behind Calgary. same with Western Ontario. Why insist the time needs to be the same across the province. We are Canadians, should we all set our clocks to what it is in Newfoundland? – think about it…
Time change twice a year started in 1908. It is past due time to stop it. You can’t please everyone, there will always be some who don’t agree to anything.
Can all the Ford haters shut up already!
Ontario led the charge for permanent daylight savings time with The Time Amendment Act on November 25, 2020. And that was always contingent on Quebec and NY state also following suit. Thats logical because of how interconnected southern Ontario is to NY and Quebec. The TSX and the NYSE are the two biggest stock exchanges in North America. Imagine the nightmare if we had different opening and closing hours.
The northwestern part of Ontario has always been in Manitobas time zone. Then we go down the highway a bit and one small area in between Thunder Bay and Winnipeg hasn’t changed their clocks at all, so part of the year that town is the same as the area around it and the rest of the year it’s an hour off. It’s always horrible travelling anywhere up here. You never get used to any time zone because you keep bouncing from one to the other anytime you go somewhere
I’m in that area of Ontario that’s in the central time zone with Manitoba and I can tell you 100% that NOBODY ASKED the First Nations communities at all. No reps came to inform us and get a vote. There was also. No vote in the nearby town of white people either, so this time even they are getting screwed
The entire province should change to that. Unfortunately, we’ll find that the senseless Ford government will push daylight savings time for businesses at disastrous health effects to ontarians.
Dougie doesn’t want the change for the rest of Ontario because of the family business in Chicago.
Why can’t Toronto align with other provinces, it is wise to stick with permanent daylight it is more safe to everyone and less depressing.
Should be province wide…forget about waiting for Quebec and New York!!!! This ‘part of the province’ sounds ridiculous to me…I believe the legislation is already in place!
This not moving the clocks is getting ridiculous. Either everyone move the clocks or everyone don’t it’s getting to the stage where nobody is going to know what’s going on. How can you live in a province that has different times for part of the year.
Why not all of the province? Seems a bit ridiculous, you do it for all, not just for part of Ontario!
We live in the most ridiculous clown show of a country on planet earth .
I meant FORD, not Fird! Lol.
During the COVID, ahem, epidemic, Fird ranted about “listening to the experts” over the rules to follow to keep our health safe. Now, when the experts all say to switch back in November to standard time and stay there, he seems to be ignoring these experts and we have this time shifting mess. SMH
Why daylight time? Why not standard time? Why not referendum? Do we, the people, have no say?
Which bureaucrat came up with that idea? Why not all of the province? No, let’s make it more confusing than it actually is!
It’s about time