By Jordan Davidson (Twitter: @JordanDHeyNow)

HAVE YOUR SAY OCT. 18

Daylight saving time: Yay, or nay?

Sep 23, 2021 | 12:42 PM

With the federal election now behind us, we can turn our attention to the Oct. 18 municipal election. You’ll also have the opportunity to vote for a Senate nominee, as well as answer two referendum questions, both of which are included on the ballot.

The first question has to do with equalization payments, while the second one is a lot more straight forward: Do you want Alberta to adopt year-round Daylight Saving Time, which is summer hours, eliminating the need to change our clocks twice a year?

According to National Geographic, DST was first officially enacted by Germany during WWl as a way to embrace the daylight and conserve electricity. They also say contrary to popular belief, DST wasn’t lobbied for by farmers, who base their harvest and seeding times more on moisture levels and sun cycles instead of what time it is.

Agriculture Service Manager for Red Deer County, Cody McIntosh, says with advances in technology such as GPS and LED lights, it’s no longer necessary for certain businesses to rely on the light of the sun to get work done.

“I don’t think it’s a necessary shift that we all need to do as a society, but probably something that was more effective 50-40 years ago. Lately I don’t think there’s a whole lot of need for it. I think there’s benefit to society that we use less electricity when we do the daylight hour shift, but not specifically for farming.”

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McIntosh says agriculture producers who grow crops may be the only group who might potentially benefit from more daylight hours, as those changes may disrupt when certain stores open or when farm hands can arrive to help.

Other operations such as a dairy farm stick to their own schedules that have little to do with how many hours of sunlight there is in a day.

Wealth Management Specialist and Branch Manager at Scotia Wealth Management in Red Deer, Dion Zukiwsky, says while he doesn’t see a direct impact to the economy or markets in Alberta under our current spring-forward, fall-back system, he does see potential positives if everyone was working under the same time zone.

“In the finance world we work off a lot of eastern time zones, so making them matchup as best as possible is quite important, so that could possibly be a slight boost in productivity.”

He says it also depends on where other jurisdictions land on the topic, because “having consistency is most important in relation to business.”

While personally, Zukiwsky says he doesn’t see the benefit of DST, he does see the obvious benefits when companies are working within the same time zone, especially if the company does business across the country or around the world.

Dr. John Kennair, Professor of political science and law at Red Deer Polytechnic, says this question was first brought up by the provincial NDP when they were in power but was mocked by the United Conservative opposition, so he’s surprised the UCP brought it back up now. An NDP-led survey at the time found 75 per cent of Albertans supported the change.

Kennair says he doesn’t think DST creates any advantages in current society, but says the economic downsides of the time change are clearer.

“We see less productivity that week after. We see more accidents taking places in vehicles. So I actually see a huge economic benefit to getting rid of DST.”

Albertans go to the polls for the municipal election on Oct. 18.