Canada timezones (2007)

Wed Jun 28 05:44:55 UTC 2006

Paul,

I agree, there should be a zone named Blanc-Sablon.
I would suggest the following entry in the zonetab file:
CA    +5125-5708     America/Blanc-Sablon Atlantic Standard Time - Quebec - Lower North Shore
Also, "E Quebec" should be pulled from the America/Halifax entry in the zonetab file.
It won't be needed after the new zone is added.
I don't think that Iles-de-la-Madeleine or the Listiguj I.R. are significant enough to
require any mention in the zonetab file.

For information on the Lower North Shore region follow this link:
 http://www.coastersassociation.com/tourism/main.html#Municipal

I actually did some digging into this a few weeks ago but I had not posted anything because there is a lot of conflicting information about the time-of-day in this region of Quebec.

All of the Internet time/temperature web sites indicate that Blanc-Sablon and the other Lower North Shore communities observe daylight time.
Some sites place it in Eastern time, others place it in Atlantic time.

Even the NRC "summer time zone map" indicates that the region uses daylight time in the summer.
 http://inms-ienm.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/images/time_services_images/TZ01SE.pdf

The only web site that seems to show the correct time is the Envionment Canada weather forcast site:
 http://www.weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/city/pages/qc-163_metric_e.html
Look specifically at the section labeled "Currently" which shows the time in AST (updated hourly on the hour).

If it were up to me, I would also make some changes to the Newfoundland and Labrador entries in the zonetab file.
With the current setup, "W Labrador" is tied to America/Halifax which changes times at 2:00am while "E Labrador" is tied to America/Goose_Bay which changes times at 12:01am.
This is only a suggestion, don't shoot me if you don't like it:
CA      +4734-05243     America/St_Johns     Newfoundland Time - Newfoundland & SE corner of Labrador
CA      +5320-06025     America/Goose_Bay    Atlantic Time - Labrador (all places except SE corner)
CA      +4439-06336     America/Halifax      Atlantic Time - Nova Scotia (most places) and PEI

note: it is not necessary to state "Newfoundland Island" when refering to the island of Newfoundland.
The name of the province changed a few years ago from "Newfoundland" to "Newfoundland and Labrador".
"Newfoundland" means the island of Newfoundland.
"Labrador" means Labrador.
"Newfoundland and Labrador" refers to the provice which is comprised of Newfoundland + Labrador.

-chris

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Eggert [mailto:eggert at CS.UCLA.EDU]
Sent: Tue 6/27/2006 4:09 AM
To: tz at lecserver.nci.nih.gov
Cc: patrice.scattolin at oracle.com
Subject: Re: Canada timezones (2007)

"Chris Walton" <Chris.Walton at telus.com> writes:

Wow, thanks for all those references!  You did a lot of legwork.  I'll
fold them into the "northamerica" comments.

>   http://www.assnat.qc.ca/eng/37legislature2/Projets-loi/Publics/06-a002.htm

This reference has some extra bits of information that prompted me to
fill in one of our long list of TODO items, namely time in far east
Quebec.

The reference says that Quebec observes EST/EDT if you are west of 63
degrees West longitude, or are in "the territory of Municipalite
regionale de comte de Minganie".  As I understand it from
http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/ and Wikipedia, this territory straddles the
meridian in question.

It also says that Quebec observes AST if you are "east of the meridian
of 63 degrees West longitude" or "in the territory of the Listuguj
reserve" (which is west of that meridian -- evidently this is an
exception to the general EST/EDT rule); and that during summer you
observe ADT if you are "in the Iles-de-la-Madeleine" or "in the
territory of the Listuguj reserve".

>From this we can deduce that if you are in Quebec east of 63 degrees
W., and are not in the MRC Miganie, and are not in the
Iles-de-la-Madeleine, and are not in the territory of the Listuguj
reserve, then you observe AST all year.  This matches information we
already have from Matthews and Vincent (1998), and I just now
confirmed this from a quite detailed web page from the Quebec
department of justice
<http://www.justice.gouv.qc.ca/english/publications/generale/temps-regl-1-a.htm>.

With all these seemingly authoritative defacto and dejure references,
we should have a Zone for this AST-only region.  The 2001 Census of
Canada lists Blanc-Sablon (pop 1201) as the most populous in this
region, so I will propose adding a new zone America/Blanc-Sablon for
it.  For lack of better historical info I'll suggest something
like this:

Zone America/Blanc-Sablon -3:48:28 -       LMT     1884
                          -4:00    Canada  A%sT    1970
                          -4:00    -       AST

Evidently the folks in Listuguj prefer to sync with New Brunswick, and
I suspect they can use America/Moncton; similarly the folks in Les
Iles-de-la-Madeleine prefer Prince Edward Island or Nova Scotia time
and can use America/Halifax.

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