Atlantic Canada premiers to discuss possibility of permanent daylight time

Atlantic Canada’s premiers will discuss the possibility of adopting permanent daylight time in an upcoming meeting.

The conversation will ride the momentum of the United States Senate approving a bill called the Sunshine Protection Act on Tuesday. If it becomes law, the traditional twice-a-year time change would end within the U.S. mainland by November 2023.

New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs said the possibility of doing the same would be on the schedule this weekend in a meeting between himself and the premiers of Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia.

“It will be an agenda item and I would dare say it will come out probably that we’ll all be in agreement,” said Higgs on Wednesday. “There seems to be widespread public support, so yeah, I’m there.”

Ontario and British Columbia have already passed legislation to do away with time changes, so long as neighbouring jurisdictions in the same time zone follow suit.

Most of Saskatchewan and all of Yukon already observe permanent daylight time. Other parts of Canada also avoid moving their clocks ahead and backwards, including northwestern British Columbia, Creston, B.C. (a town near the Canada-U.S. border), southeastern Labrador, as well as pockets of Ontario and Nunavut.

Higgs said mutual agreement would need to be found within the Atlantic region for any change to occur.

“We can’t do it in isolation,” he said.

In a written statement Wednesday, Nova Scotia’s Department of Justice said it was following the U.S. Senate’s decision “with interest,” also mentioning that any move to permanent daylight time would require “regional coordination.”