MLA defends time-change bill in committee meeting

Edmonton NDP MLA Thomas Dang defended his private member’s bill to ditch the twice-yearly time change during a friendly grilling by MLAs on Wednesday evening.

The bill — which would shift Alberta to central time yearround, keeping extra daylight in the summer but making for some dark mornings in the winter — was referred to committee for further study and public consultation when it came up for second reading in April.

In general, MLAs Wednesday at committee had small concerns and many expressed cautious support for the change to what would be called Alberta Standard Time, citing favourable input from constituents.

“The type of stories I heard on my consultation struck a chord on many levels,” said Dang during the Economic Future Committee meeting at the Federal Building in Edmonton. “People keep asking me to keep fighting for this bill.”

One persistent concern was the increased darkness in the mornings, especially with children walking to school. Progressive Conservative MLA Richard Gotfried said that has to be explained to people during consultations.

“We really need to talk to people about how it’s going to affect their lives,” said Gotfried.

Much of the debate around the bill centred on how it would affect hockey games on television. During debate in the legislature, several MLAs worried it would imperil the natural Saturday night doubleheader of National Hockey League games, where an East Coast game is immediately followed by a West Coast game.

Wildrose MLA Derek Fildebrandt called it a genuinely nonideological issue that “will either unite us or disunite us, depending on what hockey teams we go for.”

The Edmonton Oilers facing off against the Anaheim Ducks in Game 7 of Round 2 of the NHL playoffs — resulting in some committee members hoping for a quick meeting — provided an appropriate backdrop for the meeting.

Dang said his office received more than 800 phone calls in one day regarding this bill and almost 27,000 unique responses to the survey.

Dang said he heard from one poultry farmer who said the time change unsettled her chickens and resulted in a 10 per cent difference in her yield. Nurses told him the time change unsettled patients in long-term care, postal workers complained that it messed with their daily routines and seniors said it interfered with their daily drug doses.

The bill attracted some scattered cheers in the legislature when it was introduced and Dang said 82 per cent of the respondents to an NDP caucus survey on the matter said they were tired of changing their clocks twice a year.