[tz] [IANA #1173666] Time zone change - Yukon Canada

Andrew.Smith at gov.yk.ca Andrew.Smith at gov.yk.ca
Wed Sep 30 19:41:56 UTC 2020


Hi again everyone.
I’m reaching out for advice, possibly from a jurisdiction who also eliminated time changes in the last few years.
I am seeing an issue with calendars and computer-scheduled events.

·         Calendar items in Outlook, Google Calendars, Apple Calendar, etc that were entered before a system was assigned to the new Yukon time zone will show as occurring an hour later after Nov. 1, 2020.

·         Calendar items that were created under the old time zone still ‘think’ they are on Vancouver time.

·         When Vancouver time switches to standard time on Nov. 1, those items think they are on UTC -8.

·         When those old items are displayed in a calendar that is now recognizing the new Yukon time, they show as an hour later than they should be occurring because they are translating the time in UTC -8 to UTC -7, hence displaying as one hour later.

As another example, I have a chicken farmer who is concerned his automated light systems will be off by an hour on Nov. 1. Some people also mentioned traffic light cycles, certainly any appointment booking systems, and my biggest worry is medical devices. The problem will dilute over time as all systems recognize the correct time, but there will be a hangover period by the looks of it.

If there is any experience on how to correct this in any software, I am eager to hear it. Thanks.

Andrew G. Smith
Intergovernmental Relations
Executive Council Office
Government of Yukon
T: 867-667-5875


From: Andrew.Smith
Sent: September 24, 2020 2:12 PM
To: 'Time zone mailing list' <tz at iana.org>
Cc: 'Arthur David Olson' <arthurdavidolson at gmail.com>
Subject: RE: [tz] [IANA #1173666] Time zone change - Yukon Canada

Good afternoon time zone mailing list.

Yukon has completed its regulatory change to be on UTC -7 year-round.
As promised back in July, here is the link to that regulation: http://www.gov.yk.ca/legislation/regs/oic2020_125.pdf
What we have done is re-defined Yukon Standard Time, as we are authorized to do under section 33 of our Interpretation Act: http://www.gov.yk.ca/legislation/acts/interpretation_c.pdf

I am seeing many devices/operating systems have already updated over the last few months.

My thanks to the group in helping navigate this change. I will remain the contact on this file here in Yukon, if anything else comes up.


Andrew G. Smith
Intergovernmental Relations
Executive Council Office
Government of Yukon
C: 867-335-6008

From: Andrew.Smith
Sent: July 6, 2020 11:51 AM
To: 'Arthur David Olson' <arthurdavidolson at gmail.com<mailto:arthurdavidolson at gmail.com>>; Time zone mailing list <tz at iana.org<mailto:tz at iana.org>>
Subject: RE: [tz] [IANA #1173666] Time zone change - Yukon Canada

As far as Yukon is concerned, I will send you all a link to the regulation, once it is law. Along with that, I will describe what we did in a legal sense, where those authorities come from, and how it is described. I am confident with what I’ve submitted for approval to our government, but it is inappropriate for me to describe it publicly before Cabinet approves our regulation.
Will be in touch. Thanks for keeping me in on the conversation. I don’t know how many people are on this TZ mailing list, hopefully the information coming from Yukon isn’t just noise in your inboxes.

Andrew G. Smith
Intergovernmental Relations
Executive Council Office
Government of Yukon
C: 867-335-6008

From: Arthur David Olson
Sent: July 3, 2020 2:29 PM
To: Time zone mailing list
Cc: Andrew.Smith
Subject: Re: [tz] [IANA #1173666] Time zone change - Yukon Canada

One other piece of information to solicit from governments who switch to permanent DST: is the new scheme permanent daylight time, or does it establish a new standard time?

(This can be of importance in dealing with laws or contracts written in terms of "standard time.")

@dashdashado

On Fri, Jul 3, 2020 at 5:22 PM Brian Inglis <Brian.Inglis at systematicsw.ab.ca<mailto:Brian.Inglis at systematicsw.ab.ca>> wrote:
We should also ask all government folks to provide web links to officially
published acts, decrees, laws, orders, regulations, or statutes available online
at a government web site, with the document providing full details including
dates, times, and the zones in effect when any changes or transitions in time
are to be made, plus any preferences as to normal English names or
abbreviations, as well as the legally effective date (time, zone) of publication.
These official document links avoid any possible later issues, should anyone
dispute and solicit changes to the time keeping practice in effect at any
location within that legal jurisdiction, as we are aware of both official and de
facto variances in practices near many time zone boundaries.

On 2020-07-03 12:40, Tim Parenti wrote:
> Thanks for keeping us in the loop, then.
> Since tz is used directly by many operating systems — Apple (including iOS),
> Google (including Android), and most Linux distributions — most day-to-day users
> should be good to go when the change is finalized, if they aren't already. For
> what it's worth, it seems Microsoft have also picked up on the change
> https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/daylight-saving-time-time-zone/time-zone-updates-for-yukon-canada/ba-p/1334689,
> though from the date of their announcement, it's possible they got the news
> from us.
> Other software which does not rely on the operating system's timezone
> definitions may require their own updates; those concerns are downstream
> from this project.

> On Fri, 3 Jul 2020 at 14:31, Andrew Smith wrote:
> That is excellent to hear, Tim.
> Yes, I had known that some time services has interpreted our announcement as
> the ‘done and dusted’ finalization. At that point in March it was a policy
> commitment, and the news on that nuance was not totally clear. We just do
> have some legal process to finish off, which we are on track to do, so I
> don’t think we will end up in a tough spot.
> I will let you know when we make our change legally final so we can all rest
> assured that November 2 will still see us on UTC -7.

> On July 3, 2020 11:24 AM, Tim Parenti wrote:
> We made this change in our codebase on 5 March 2020, based on 4 March CBC
> reporting and a government press release stating that Yukon would be
> remaining permanently on UTC-7 following its spring-forward transition on 8
> March. As such, both America/Dawson and America/Whitehorse have been updated
> accordingly:
> https://github.com/eggert/tz/commit/e6c1f0e7daa0b6c5131b2976c6be9190845d2b49
> (Canada/Yukon is a long-deprecated backwards-compatibility link to
> America/Whitehorse, so need not be updated separately.)
> This change is already included in our latest release, 2020a, which was
> published on 23 April 2020. Although it can sometimes take several weeks or
> months after publication for our releases to make it to downstream
> distributions and software updates for various computer and mobile platforms,
> many recent devices that are receiving regular updates should already have
> this change, and many more are likely to receive it before Yukon time
> diverges from our old predictions in November.
> One (hopefully small) point: Our understanding from the press release at
> https://yukon.ca/en/news/yukon-end-seasonal-time-change was that this
> decision was already finalized. If it is not, this is not a major issue,
> but do note that tz's current predictions published in 2020a do not have
> Yukon falling back on 1 November 2020… so if for some reason the regulatory
> processes should be delayed, please contact us as soon as that's apparent.
> On July 2, 2020 3:48 PM, Amanda Baber via RT wrote:
> Thank you for contacting us.
> IANA hosts the Time Zone Database, but the database is managed by the Time
> Zone Coordinator in conjunction with a mailing list. You can find find
> mailing list information here:
> https://www.iana.org/time-zones
> This document should have or point to much of the information you're looking
> for:
> https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tz-link.html
> As is noted at the link above, "If your government plans to change its time
> zone boundaries or daylight saving rules, inform tz at iana.org<mailto:tz at iana.org> well in advance,
> as this will coordinate updates to many cell phones, computers, and other
> devices around the world. With less than a year's notice there is a good
> chance that some computer-based clocks will operate incorrectly after the
> change, due to delays in propagating updates to software and data. The
> shorter the notice, the more likely clock problems will arise; see
> https://codeofmatt.com/on-the-timing-of-time-zone-changes
> for examples."

> On Thu Jul 02 22:20:44 2020, Andrew Smith wrote:
>> I work for the Government of Yukon in Canada. We are in the process of
>> revising our definition of time to be permanently on UTC -7, no longer
>> observing a twice-annual time change. I was on the hunt for authoritative
>> standards related to time, and saw the IANA come up as caretaker of the
>> time zone database, which appears to be relied on for software and systems.
>> I started with ISO 8601, but couldn't see the full text to know if there
>> are time zone standards there. I am contacting you to see your TZ database
>> is a widely adopted and authoritative as it seems, to see if there is any
>> process to making this adjustment in your TZ database, and perhaps to know
>> if there are other agencies that should be aware of what Yukon is
>> planning.
>> From what I see now, TZ database names "America/Dawson",
>> "America/Whitehorse" and "Canada/Yukon" would be affected by this change.
>>
>> Our regulation is not yet complete, so it is not law at this time and I am
>> not looking for immediate change. We are aiming for finalization here by
>> November 1, 2020.

--
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

This email may be disturbing to some readers as it contains
too much technical detail. Reader discretion is advised.
[Data in IEC units and prefixes, physical quantities in SI.]
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