Daylight saving changes must match in both provinces

Messing up daylight saving puts us out of sync, Mathieu Vaillancourt says.

My local Liberal MPP, Marie-France Lalonde, who represents Orléans at Queen’s Park, has a private member’s bill which essentially aims to scrap the twice-yearly time change in Ontario. We’d set the clocks ahead in March 2020, but not set them back in October. The bill recently passed first reading with unanimous support.

The idea is not a bad one on paper: Provinces/states such as Saskatchewan or Arizona have no twice-yearly time change, for instance. But read into the fine print and consider the ramifications of this bill.

Ironically, it is being proposed by an MPP who represents a riding along the Ontario- Quebec border. And this is why the proposal is in fact a very bad idea: Quebec does follow the twice-annual clock change routine. Spring — ahead; Fall — back.

The border between Ottawa and Gatineau is among the most integrated in North America, especially in terms of people working in one province and living in the other. According to Statistics Canada in 2016, more than 52,645 people living in Gatineau commute to work in another province. Almost all of them work in the Ottawa region just across the river. About 22,130 people in Ottawa commute to work in another province on their weekday commute — that is, Quebec. Morning and night, the multiple bridges and the ferry between Ontario and Quebec are jam-packed with commuters, just like those STO and OC Transpo buses crossing the border almost every minute at rush hour.

If this bill passes, and the Quebec government (or at least the City of Gatineau) doesn’t scrap the time change when Ontario does, it will make things much more complicated, including for thousands of constituents of MPP Lalonde who live in Ontario but work in Quebec. Things like OC Transpo or STO bus schedules will be recurring puzzles; the bus systems work on both sides of the river and timetables will become a complete mess.

The issue could also affect politicians, as some federal ministers have their offices in Gatineau while they work in Ottawa on Parliament Hill. This will be an all-around problem for their schedules; they’ll have to always be on the lookout for which time zone they’re in, which will change depending on the time of year.

The idea of scrapping our Daylight Saving Time regime has merits — only if Gatineau gets on board with the same time policy.

If not, it will create more pain than good for many, many people in the National Capital Region.