Yesterday evening in the BC Legislature Bill 40: Interpretation Amendment Act, 2019 was debated during committee stage. As readers will know, the BC Green caucus voted against this bill at second reading for reasons that I discussed earlier.

During committee stage I asked the Attorney General a few questions to clarify his rationale for proposing a permanent switch to Pacific Daylight Time instead of Pacific Standard Time.

Below I reproduce the video and text of our exchange.

Video of Exchange

Text of Exchange

A. Weaver: My question with respect to this section is…. I understand the bill was proposed after a very extensive consultation process in the midst of the summer, when everyone’s sitting on their patios enjoying the long summer nights. My question to the minister is: why was the option for remaining on standard time not put to the people as well?

I’ve received quite a bit of feedback from my constituents, invariably opposed to going on daylight time but, rather, staying on standard time. I’m wondering why that option was not put forward.

Many people who’ve expressed their concerns to me have done so saying that they don’t like the change. They understand the research in terms of both the health and safety impacts with springing forward and falling back every year. They understand that. They understand the move and desire to keep on the same time zone.

The arguments were not particularly compelling, as my friend from Kootenay East here pointed out, with respect to interjurisdictional matching, in light of the fact that we have three time zones already in our province and in light of the fact Saskatchewan remains on standard time year round. So does the Fort St. John region. Alberta is going through this process that could end up being on standard time or daylight time or Pacific Time. So why was this not put as one of the potential options?

Hon. D. Eby: Remarkably, 223,000 British Columbians in the summer participated in this engagement, a very significant level of participation. There was an open-ended section in the survey where people could provide their feedback to us. Staff advise that 3 percent of those open-ended answers referred to preferring to be on standard time versus the option that was put forward in the survey.

The key motivator around the options that were presented in the survey was, I think, borne out in the consultation: the idea that we would be well placed to be consistent up and down the coast, from the Yukon all the way down to California, if we could.

I accept the member’s contention that it wasn’t put forward in the survey. But even where people did have an opportunity to raise the issue, we did not see a significant number of folks raising concern about this. It was on the order of about 3 percent.

A. Weaver: Well, I don’t feel that that’s a very satisfactory answer. The question was why it was not put on as opposed to in the open space, where people often…. They like to click boxes in these surveys. There was no option presented.

In the second reading speech, I gave a long discussion about some of the issues that will arise. I would suggest to the Attorney General that the information — does he not feel this is true? — provided to people was incomplete.

The information provided to citizens voting or selecting choices, limited choices, did not really talk about some of the failed models — when we went to daylight savings time in the U.K. in 1968. It did not talk about the safety issues that arose as a direct consequence of that, which is why, in 1971, after people complaining, they switched back to standard time. I remind the Attorney General that our latitudes are actually, in many cases, south of what in Victoria…. And we have other latitudes more north than places in Britain, where this was occurring.

In addition, we know the experiment in the U.S. not once but twice was reversed. Again, once, it was put in and reversed after a short period of time during the OPEC crisis as a direct consequence of people once more complaining. It’s going to matter when people in Prince Rupert and children going to school in Prince Rupert realize that they’re waking up with sunrise at 10:30 in the morning or whatever it might be.

It’s quite different, given that the whole reason that standard time was put in, in the first place was a standard time — recognizing that the solar noon, the temporal noon and our body clock should be as closely matched as possible. This kind of idea here seems to be half-baked.

It’s based on California, Washington and Oregon musing about it. California has since mused about going on standard time instead of daylight time. Frankly, Alaska, in the same corridor, is on a different time zone.

So I come back to the point. Does the minister feel he has the information, in light of the fact that incomplete information was provided to the electorate on which to base a decision? Does he think that, in fact, two years from now, we’re going to be reverting back to standard time like every other jurisdiction that’s done this has done so, because people will be complaining the first time a child gets hit by a car on their way to school in the dark?

Hon. D. Eby: I think it’s important to note for the member that in terms of aligning clocks to when we’re awake, the current method of changing time does the best job of that. If you’re choosing a different time zone, there are pluses and minuses. The member mentions dark mornings as a point of concern. Similarly, on the time zone the member is advocating for, there are very early morning sunrises — 3:30, four o’clock in the morning — during the summer, which has its own consequences.

So the important thing to note is that there are choices to make here. I understand that British Columbians, after they experience not doing a changing of the clock for the first time in generations, may not like it, and they may want to do something else. That is certainly a possibility. It’s not out of the question. I’m sure that the government would listen carefully to concerns like that.

But I can tell the member that we had…. Ninety-four percent of participants in the survey supported the direction of the bill.

A. Weaver: Just one final comment to confirm that it is true that sunrise in daylight savings time does occur at 3:39 in the morning in Prince George on the longest day of the year. But issue with the safety issue is the fact that down in these latitudes, we’re going to have people rising in darkness. They’ll be coming home in lightness. They’re going to be going to school in darkness, and therein lies the essence of the concerns, which I don’t think was brought to the public. With that, I’ll reserve any further questions.