A History of Time (Changes) in the Wildrose Province

I beg your indulgence as I humbly move to invoke the Cher clause. If I could turn back time as I propose to do here, it would be prudent for us to look at the most recent referendum topic that will be added to the October ballot. Indeed, Premier Jason Kenney has confirmed that Albertans will be asked to vote on whether or not the province should continue the practice of bi-annual time changes. This is far from the first time the subject has come up in Alberta politics. It is not even the first time Albertans have voted on the debate. Rather than dig into potential outcomes, we want to look at how we got to this point. Believe it or not, it is a rather interesting history with parallels to contemporary Alberta.

In 1948, the provincial government passed legislation entitled An Act Respecting the use of Daylight Savings Time within the Province. This bill formally adopted Mountain Standard Time for Albertans while also prohibiting following Daylight Savings Time in any individual municipalities. At the time, anyone who violated the act was subject to summary conviction and a fine of no more than $25 plus costs. Interestingly enough, this legislation was implemented to quell the initiatives of both Edmonton and Calgary that sought to implement Daylight Savings Time. In fact, the two cities even held successful plebiscites in 1946 and 1947 respectively which made for some obvious logistic complications for the province. In Edmonton, the ‘yes’ vote won by a count of 13,837 to 10,471 in a year where Harry Ainlay was elected mayor.

It would not be until the late 1960’s that we would see another major shift in time policy. Public campaigns led by activists Bill Creighton and David Matthews, in addition to renewed municipal pressures, led to the province holding two plebiscites in the province that, if successful, would see Alberta adopt the bi-annual practice of changing our clocks to observe Daylight Savings Time. When the first vote was held in conjunction with the 1967 general election, it simply asked “do you favour province-wide daylight saving time?” The decision was a close one (though not as close as the Quebec sovereignty referendum of 1995) with 51.25% voting against the proposal. The vote ultimately failed due to strong turnout from rural Albertans who opposed changing time twice a year. The Calgary Herald publicly displayed their dismay with the result, issuing a headline on May 24, 1967 that read “Rural Cousins Defeat DST”. Of course, you can imagine how such a headline would be (justifiably) received in Alberta today.

In the next general election in 1971,Albertans would once again have an opportunity to voice their opinions on this controversial legislative debate. The same players were involved, and an identical question was asked. Yet, this round resulted in a resounding 61.47% support for implementing Daylight Savings Time. So, what was different this time around? It was not the arguments that changed; rather, it was the organization of the ‘yes’ campaign who learned hard lessons from their defeat four years prior. The ‘no’ side was also much less active and organized than the last campaign effort, and it didn’t hurt the ‘yes’ side that there was a new premier at the helm who had agnostic views towards time changes. Funnily enough, the end to a single-observed time was also the end of the Social Credit’s reign over the province (though correlation should not be interpreted as causation in this instance).

Let’s fast forward to 2017. While some things are new on the political front (such as the first New Democrat provincial government), the old became new again as the debate on time changes was renewed. Then-rookie MLA Thomas Dang of the NDP tabled a private members bill which proposed to end the time change practice in our province while formally adopting Mountain Standard Time alone, once again. While about 82% of respondents in a provincial consultation survey agreed with the premise of ending Daylight Savings Time, the bill was ultimately abandoned due to pressures from the business community. Unlike the campaign 40 years prior, unintended consequences such as NHL game scheduling were used in opposition to the bill. Of course, some familiar faces (Creighton and Matthews) popped up to make the decades-old arguments once again.

In 2021, Albertans will be asked to vote on this issue for a third time on the provincial level when October 18th comes around. Unlike the prior plebiscites, the vote will run in conjunction with the municipal election – a decision made that will no doubt have indirect consequences on the municipal ballot. The exact question to be asked in October will be formalized later this summer, but one question that remains is whether or not the results of this referendum will be binding. For a non-constitutional issue, section 5.2(1) of the Referendum Act indicates that the Lieutenant Governor in Council must order the results to be binding – it is not automatically so. Of course, we do not expect the UCP to go through the effort of a referendum like this without ensuring the result is binding. We are already seeing similar arguments being made as we saw in 2017, but will we ultimately see a referendum victory for the provincial government?

Time will tell.