It's the time change. Stupid.

Time and politics.

Usually, not enough of one, too much of the other.

This fall? Too much of both together.

I believe in democracy and democratic processes such as voting in elections. Those elected to govern the country and, by extension, the citizens, should hold the confidence of a decent percentage of the population. I am not sure, however, that I am a fan of ‘direct democracy’ which is what Premier Danielle Smith called Alberta’s recent referendum about separating from Canada; she coupled that one radical question with nine others about immigration and constitutional reform. That kind of exercise — a specific question taken directly to the voters — looks and sounds to me more like dog whistle politics than democracy. 

In a functioning democracy, we vote in a government on the appointed date, those we elect then govern, then go back to the voters at the appropriate time (David Eby in BC can tell a story or two about when it is NOT appropriate), we vote them in or out, and so it goes. That is how I like to participate in democracy.

However, this past spring, in Manitoba we had a watered down exercise in that Alberta-style direct democracy when the government launched a survey asking us if we were in favour of continuing to change our clocks forward in the spring and back in the fall or if we wanted to stop that. And, if we did want to stop the change, which time did we prefer to stick with permanently: Daylight Saving Time or Central Standard Time. This was just an online survey that you had to find, it wasn’t going to come to you. So only those keen enough to search it out used their voice in this exercise: just shy of 72,000 responses were received, which adds up to not even five percent of the province’s population of approximately 1,500,000. Of the paltry number who replied, 92 percent wanted to end the switching back and forth time change; 58 percent voted for permanent Daylight Saving Time, while only 34 percent voted for sticking with Standard Time. I was among that minority.

This past Sunday, November 1, the permanent commitment to DST was made. The unexpected consequences of this decision (that I did not want) hit me full-on when I turned on the radio at 3pm to listen to CBC’s flagship national call-in show, live from coast to coast to coast: Cross Country Checkup. I was shocked when I heard a different show. What? Why? Huh? Then I realized that this was due to the time change or, rather, our non-time-change. Sure enough, at 4pm my time — an hour later than usual, because we did not fall back — Cross Country Checkup came on, with the host explaining that in Manitoba (among a few other provinces) the show was starting later than usual due to the time change decisions made across the country — different in different provinces, a veritable patchwork of decisions, clocks and time zones.

I realize this is a first world problem for a retired senior, but I am very grumpy about this state of time and clocks across Canada. Manitoba is now on the same time zone as Toronto: Eastern Time. Ontario is continuing to switch their clocks spring and fall, which means that our nightly news show on CBC Gem is continuing to come on at 9pm Eastern, which is now also 9pm Manitoba time — and that is late for my household! We have been watching routinely, year-round, at 8pm Manitoba time ever since Putin invaded Ukraine (horrifyingly, for almost five years now). To have to tune in one hour later changes the footprint, the rhythm and the feeling of our evenings, which revolve around dinner and then the news. I don’t like anything about this change from 8pm to 9pm. It’s making the heart of my evening too late for my liking, my aging body and my sleep needs.

Also, I haven’t been able to sort out the calendar entries on my iPhone; some meetings are showing at the time I know they are set, others are an hour off. Sheesh. If the tech cannot figure out this new time zone, there is no hope for me! 

The point is this: Time is a construct around which we organize, manage and live our daily lives. For all my life, I have managed around the back and forth of switching between regular time over the winter, then saving time for daylight in the spring, summer and most of the fall. In a 24-hour clock, we have only 24 hours; no matter what we call it or how we structure it, that doesn’t change. By choosing permanent Daylight Saving Time, Manitoba has thrown a serious wrench into the rhythm of our days as we head into the darkest period of the year on the Canadian prairies.

The human circadian rhythm is influenced by light; playing tricks on our body and brain with time changes can wreak havoc on the natural rhythm that helps us navigate our daily lives. Standard Time gives us the morning light we need to wake up our brain and our body. Artificially constructed long summer evenings are just that: artificially constructed by the 'spring forward' time change. Longer and darker winter mornings that will be norm with permanent Daylight Saving Time will be taxing. 

We shall see how this time experiment unfolds.

I, for one, am neither happy nor optimistic.

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Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation. 

Photo by mostafa mahmoudi on Unsplash