Nugget and I were out for a morning walk, a longer walk than the early “necessary” outing first thing in the morning. It was 9:05 a.m. and the sun had just broken over the horizon! Alberta’s blue sky was being revealed as another day began.

Alberta is typically dark in the morning through the winter. But this year we are even later getting to sunrise thanks to the decision by the current Alberta administration to stay with Daylight Savings Time. Why do we have DST

According to timeanddate.com :

“If you think Daylight Saving Time is a good idea, you can thank New Zealand scientist George Vernon Hudson and British builder William Willett. In 1895, Hudson presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society, proposing a 2-hour shift forward in October and a 2-hour shift back in March. There was interest in the idea, but it was never followed through.

In 1905, independently from Hudson, British builder William Willett suggested setting the clocks ahead 20 minutes on each of the four Sundays in April, and switching them back by the same amount on each of the four Sundays in September, a total of eight time switches per year”

In Canada it began in 1908 when Port Arthur decided to implement a one hour DST adjustment.

Again from timeanddate.com:

While Germany and Austria were the first countries to use DST in 1916, it is a little-known fact that a few hundred Canadians beat the German Empire by eight years. On July 1, 1908, the residents of Port Arthur, Ontario—today part of Thunder Bay—turned their clocks forward by one hour to start the world’s first DST period.

Other locations in Canada soon followed suit. On April 23, 1914, Regina in Saskatchewan implemented DST. The cities of Winnipeg and Brandon in Manitoba did so on April 24, 1916. According to the April 3, 1916, edition of the Manitoba Free Press, Daylight Saving Time in Regina “proved so popular that bylaw now brings it into effect automatically.”

Which brings us to 2026 and now a few jurisdictions are considering remaining on DST. The promise, more daylight later in the day. Ahhh,..do you know how far north we are? And do you know that mans LESS daylight in the mornings?

Come on people. This is just a bad idea brought about by bad decision making in what is proving to be not a particularly good government.

Saskatchewan has it right. Stay on standard time ALL year.

The idea of switch clocks back and forth is ridiculous, so I am in favour of stopping that bad habit, but lets not fool ourselves. There is only so much daylight in Alberta, or any province for that matter, no matter what the clocks are set at.

Thus endth the rant.