On Tue, 1 Sept 2026 at 13:10, annemarie--- via tz <[email protected]> wrote:
> “everyone has named their timezones off of their province or territory > name.” is a bit concerning. I wonder why the provinces are deciding to name > their timezone after their province or territory and what problem that > naming convention is intended to solve? Broadly, I think it's largely seen an internal thing to each province and territory because their other laws and regulations refer to local timekeeping practice by a name and it genuinely is probably simpler to normalize all internal references to "[jurisdiction name] Time" because then, moving forward, you're only having to change the definition of the timekeeping practice itself. And since timekeeping is a provincial/territorial matter in Canada, this makes sense, but individual provinces and territories may have other reasons of their own for promoting such nomenclature both within and outside their borders. In terms of coordination, collaboration, or anything federal, though — this is where the more familiar names have their impact. The federal *Interpretation Act* defines the familiar time zone names; however, it has fallen somewhat out of alignment with actual practice for a while without much issue. It's more of a potential issue in the federal *Canada Elections Act*, which uses these names to coordinate polling hours nationwide for federal elections and (currently) has exception language for Saskatchewan only — with this year's changes in western Canada, that could result in some confusing polling hours if a federal election were to be held in the winter months. -- Tim Parenti
