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Manitobans could soon be consulted on whether it’s necessary to continue changing the clocks twice a year.
Premier Wab Kinew hinted the province is nearing the end of the practice of moving clocks forward an hour in the spring and “falling” back an hour in autumn.
“Nobody would design the system this way if we were starting from scratch today,” Kinew told reporters at an unrelated news conference Friday.
“The challenge just comes from us trying to transition away from this sleep-destroying structure that we currently have, and trying to get it to something that’s more healthy and sustainable for the public in the long run.”
Kinew said the government is looking at surveying Manitobans on what their preferences would be.
He added that he and other politicians have been getting an earful about daylight time, professionally and personally.
After clocks moved forward an hour Sunday, Kinew told reporters he was at a rink with other hockey parents for an early practice and wondered, “Why are we doing this?”
He said the inboxes of legislature members are full of comments from Manitobans about the time change. Kinew added that his wife, who is a doctor, told him it isn’t ideal, health-wise.
Time regulation falls under provincial and territorial jurisdiction, and the Canadian Encyclopedia says Ottawa officially introduced daylight time in 1918 as a measure to increase wartime production.
British Columbia Premier David Eby announced earlier this month that his province will stay on daylight time permanently and won’t be turning clocks back to rejoin standard time on Nov. 1.
B.C. joins Saskatchewan and Yukon in not observing a time change, although those two maintain permanent standard time, not permanent daylight time.
Kinew told reporters he’s not rushing to follow B.C.’s move to stay on daylight time and pointed to benefits of having permanent standard time.
“Everybody, I’m sure, intuitively would prefer the one hour of sunshine in the summer evening, but the health benefits are actually greater if you stick with wintertime, as it were, in Manitoba,” he said.
“We’re talking about prevalence of stroke, prevalence of obesity in the society coming down significantly if we move to that permanent wintertime. I just don’t know if the general public in Manitoba is there.”
This isn’t the first time Manitoba has looked at doing away with the time change.
A private member’s bill was introduced in the legislature in 2019 that proposed abolishing daylight time, but it did not pass. The New Democrats, in Opposition at the time, conducted an online survey on time changes. The party never came to a conclusion.
In 2022, the then-Progressive Conservative government looked at moving to permanent daylight time if the United States led the way.
Tory MLA Ron Schuler introduced a new bill this month to move to permanent daylight time effective next year.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has indicated her government will consult on doing away with twice-a-year clock changes.
The Ontario government passed legislation in 2020 to end the twice-yearly changing of clocks and make daylight time permanent, but only if Quebec and New York agreed to do the same.
Atlantic Canada’s premiers decided in 2022 to hold off on any move toward dropping the time change until they saw what neighbouring jurisdictions would do.
