On Tue, 10 Mar 2026 at 13:17, Paul Eggert <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I would have told them to make the > > decree say that the law takes effect on 2026-11-01 – it would have been > the > > same to them, but it seems like that would have forced your hand the > other > > way. > > Yes, of course if BC had done it the way CLDR wants, TZDB would have > done it that way. That's our job. > And this is why there's a difference between a press release that effectively says "eight months to prepare for the law's impacts" and an order that effectively says "this law comes into force in seven days". > But I disagree that it would have been the same to the BC government. > Calling it "Pacific Time" is a political decision, and the timing of > calling it "Pacific Time" is another political decision. Keep in mind also that the legislation was enacted in 2019 with the full expectation that western US states would follow suit and that it would not be brought into force without such coordination. The "Pacific Time" name was baked in then and could not simply be changed to something else by the BC Council when it decided to bring the law into force. So I would caution folks against reading into the apparent political nature of what may look like "Canadian Pacific Time" vs "US Pacific Time", and keep that very much separate from any of the myriad political reasons (internal or external) there may have been for the actual substance of the change as far as timekeeping goes, which TZDB merely describes as-needed and takes no position on. There is every chance that, as the very sorts of growing pains we've been discussing become more readily apparent to more people, the official name could soon be changed to something less confusing for all. -- Tim Parenti
