On Sun, 16 Aug 2026 at 12:37, Brian Inglis via tz <[email protected]> wrote:
> it is possible that many Alberta-adjacent BCers may be unaware > that Alberta is also changing to "Permanent DST" MDT aka CST, as their > original > intent of not following PST BC Standard time was to use the same time zone > as > adjacent Alberta regions with which they do business. > I'm a bit confused by this assertion, as it's exactly this relationship with neighboring regions that RDEK's new decision maintains. The RDEK board's original March vote to rejoin the rest of BC on year-round UTC−7 was with two weeks of the announcement from Victoria, and narrowly passed 8–7. Though the question was quickly called a second time and the decision rescinded, it was at least facially reasonable at the time, as Alberta had not yet made similar moves yet. Now, with Alberta finding itself flanked on either side by provinces without seasonal time shifts, it did stand to reason, even then, that they would abolish their own seasonal shifts one way or the other — indeed, this expectation was no small part of some of the negative public reaction to RDEK's March decision given the area's close economic ties with Alberta. And, in fact, Alberta did soon follow suit, announcing in April, legislating in May, and implementing in June. The regional survey in southeastern BC led by RDEK did not start until early July, after that had all taken place, and as such it fully spelled out the state of the recent changes in both BC and Alberta. While the survey has of course closed, you can still see this information in the "Background Info" tab of the survey webpage: https://engage.rdek.bc.ca/timechange Although the survey results attached to meeting agendas only break down the responses for the two year-round options, maintaining the seasonal time change locally was also a third choice on the survey for completeness, though it only garnered 11% support. Given the total number of responses (~14,000) relative to the affected area's population (~73,000), I would not be so quick to assume people there are "unaware" of the state of things or the trade-offs. And it can't be understated: What ends up a no-op for tzdata also means a mental no-op for most folks living in the area. Both the boundaries and deltas between time observances remain the same regionally as they have been, so locals who are already familiar with navigating the provincial border, the time zone border, or both don't need to adjust their existing thinking in that regard. Sure, it may look a bit weird when zooming out on a global map, but fundamentally time zones came about to coordinate society on a more granular, local level than that — so if it will work for the locals, that's all that matters. -- Tim Parenti
