Saskatchewan (2007)

[Chris]

Over the past couple of months I have posted a number of e-mails related to Canadian time legislation.
I never mentioned Saskatchewan because most of the province does not observe daylight saving time.

There are actually two small regions in Saskatchewan that do use daylight saving time:
1)Lloydminster and surrounding area.
2)Creighton and Denare Beach area.
Both of these regions are briefly mentioned in  TZDATA's "northamerica" file.


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The city of Lloydminster straddles the Alberta/Saskatchewan border. It uses MST/MDT.
There is a special bit of legislation called the "Lloydminster Charter".
The bylaws in the charter cover the entire city (both sides of the provincial border).
Here are two URLs for the charter.
Government of Alberta web site:
 http://www.qp.gov.ab.ca/Documents/REGS/1979_043.CFM
Government of Saskatchewan web site:
 http://www.qp.gov.sk.ca/documents/english/Statutes/Historical/lloydchr.pdf
Section 5(2) reads:
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   "Whenever any particular time of day is referred to in this Charter,
   the same shall mean Mountain Standard Time except that in every year
   during the period between two o'clock in the forenoon of the first
   Sunday in April and two o'clock in the forenoon of the last Sunday
   in October it shall mean Central Standard Time."
   -----------------------------------------------------------------
Since Lloydminster has traditionally followed the daylight savings practices of Alberta, I assume that the charter will have to be updated for 2007.


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The Battle River region surrounding the city of Lloydminster uses the same time as Lloydminster.
Presumably the bylaws in the Lloydminster Charter don't apply outside the city limits.
So the region surrounding Lloydminster on the east side of the provincial border is subject to the rules in the Saskatchewan Time Act.
The Saskatchewan Time Act defines time for all regions of the province except the city of Lloydminster.  The Act allows the rules in western parts of the province to be overridden by public election.
 http://www.qp.gov.sk.ca/documents/english/statutes/statutes/t14.pdf
Several sections of the act are of interest:
  ----------------------------------------------------------------
  2(i) "summer period  means that period in each year beginning at
  two o'clock, mountain standard time, in the forenoon of the first
  Sunday in April and ending at two o'clock, mountain standard time,
  in the forenoon of the last Sunday in October;"
  ---------------------------------------------------------------
  "Non-application of Act
  5 Nothing in this Act applies to a reference to time in:
    (a) The Lloydminster Charter; or"...
  ---------------------------------------------------------------
  "Time in certain areas of western Saskatchewan
    8(1) The time to be used and observed in western Saskatchewan:
         (a) during the summer period, is central standard time; and
         (b) during the winter period, is mountain standard time, except
         in respect of
         any time option area where central standard time is decided
         upon by a majority of the electors of the time option area
         voting with respect thereto under this Act whose ballots are
         not rejected.
    (2) Notwithstanding subsection (1), on and from the commencement of
    the winter period in 1983 and until a vote is taken in accordance
    with this Act, the time to be used and observed:
         (a) in the Battle River Time Option Area:
               (i) during the summer period, is central standard time; and
               (ii) during the winter period, is mountain standard time; and
         (b) throughout the year in the Paynton Time Option Area is central
         standard time."
    ---------------------------------------------------------------------
Notice that the transition from daylight time to standard time is supposed to take place at 2:00am MST (3:00MDT).  This is one hour after the transition defined in the Lloydminster charter.  Therefore, the area surrounding Lloydminster on the east side of the provincial border should be out of sync with Lloydminster for one hour each year.  Ugh! Doesn't this call for a new time zone for a region that probably has no more than 2 or 3 thousand residents.
Maybe we just have to ignore the Time Act.
The NRC seems to have ignored it.  The INMS-NRC site says:
 "Areas around Lloydminster are in the Mountain Time
  zone and change at 2:00a.m. local time as in Alberta"
 http://inms-ienm.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/en/faq_time_e.php#5



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And finally there is the small area that contains the towns of Creighton and Denare Beach.
This region uses CST/CDT to align with the city  of Flin Flon Manitoba.
The use of daylight saving time in this region is in defiance of the Saskatchewan Time Act.
Should we stop and ponder what time Creighton and Denare Beach have historically done the transition from daylight time to standard time?
Is it:
 a) 2:00am wall time as is tradition in most parts of the country  or
 b) 02:00 CST (3:00am wall time) as per the old Manitoba Time Act  or
 c) 02:00 MST (4:00am wall time) as per the definition of "summer time" in the
    Saskatchewan Time Act?
 or
 d) 8:07am wall time because we can't expect non-law-abiding citizens get up
    in the middle of the night to change the clocks.


It will be interesting to see if the Saskatchewan government bothers to update the Time Act to reflect the extra four weeks of daylight savings in 2007.
Personally I think that the all fourteen pages of the old act should be burned and replaced with something more concise.  But that is just my opinion.
I will keep an eye out for new legislation and I will post an e-mail to this group if I see anything.

-chris