The basic idea behind Daylight Saving Time is to make the most out of hours of sunlight. Clocks are moved forward an hour from March to November to get more productive use of daylight. Most of Saskatchewan and parts of B.C., Quebec and Ontario abstain from switching to DST and lately there have been a few rumblings of discontent from other people and places such as Alberta that considered scrapping it last year but the Bill failed to pass. For some reason the province stated abolishing DST would have a negative effect on Alberta’s economy. Don’t ask me how. Arguments are surfacing against DST saying it can disrupt sleep patterns, increase the amount of tired drivers during morning rush hours, and may have a link to heart health, though this has yet to be proven. The subject of switching here has been raised from time to time but the conversation quickly dies away. I’m told we did have DST up to the late 60’s when the legislature passed the Time Act decreeing the entire province will be on the same time, all the time. The problem before that was that the line of demarcation isn’t at our borders but comes down inside Saskatchewan so the western part is on Mountain Time while the eastern part is on Central Time. So the western portion is actually on Mountain DST all the time and the rest is on Central Standard Time, which equates to the same time. And now its time to get on to other things.

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.