Parts of northwestern Ontario moving to permanent daylight savings time in November
The Province of Ontario has announced parts of northwestern Ontario will move to permanent daylight savings time on Nov. 1.
Change will allow communities to align with Manitoba, which is also moving to permanent DST
Kris Ketonen · CBC News
·
Listen to this article
Estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.
Changing clocks twice a year will be a thing of the past for parts of northwestern Ontario.
The province announced Tuesday that parts of this area of Ontario will be moving to permanent daylight savings time as of Nov. 1.
The move allows the communities to align with Manitoba, which announced last month it will move to permanent daylight savings time on Nov. 1.
Kenora-Rainy River MPP, Minister of Northern Development, and Minister of Indigenous Affairs Greg Rickford said the decision comes after consultations with municipalities and First Nations in the area, which runs from the English River to the Manitoba Border.
"On a practical side, an overwhelming majority of the people of northwestern Ontario sitting in the central standard time zone just thought it made more sense to go with Manitoba, because our transactions are more typically with them," Rickford told CBC News on Tuesday morning.
How Manitoba time change could create an 'island of central time' in northwestern Ontario
Manitoba adopts permanent daylight time after survey suggested overwhelming opposition to clock changes
"We heard from particularly health entities, who said 'look, whatever decision's made, it should involve the least amount of time zones possible, because there are electronic medical records, and their appointment planning either in Manitoba or Thunder Bay would be impacted by that," he said. "And secondly, could we do that as quickly as possible so that they could begin those preparations?"
Rickford said the changes only affect areas in the region on central time; it won't have any impact on communities in the eastern time zone, such as Thunder Bay.
“Providing certainty and predictability is essential to supporting strong communities and a competitive economy,” Ontario Attorney General Doug Downey said in a media release. “By keeping this part of the province aligned with Manitoba, our government is taking a practical, common-sense approach to avoid unnecessary disruptions and ensure economic stability in communities that reside in Ontario’s central time zone.”
Kenora Mayor Andrew Poirier said Tuesday he's pleased with Ontario's decision.
"(Manitoba) really is where, not only just economically and that, but socially, that's where our connection is," he said. "It's reciprocated by Manitobans, because we do have an awful lot of Manitobans that own property and around the Kenora area."
Kenora council recently passed a resolution urging the government to end daylight savings time for parts of the region. Poirier noted that the city conducted a survey of residents, and nearly 5,300 people responded; of those, just over 93 per cent were in favour of the change.
Poirier said Kenora representatives are now discussing what sort of steps the city needs to take to make sure the change is implemented smoothly.
"There still might be internal things that have to take place ... even with the time not changing because a lot of these systems are set up to change," he said. "You have to make sure that that's not going to happen. So we're going to do that and come out with a communication strategy just to begin to remind people."
Rick Dumas, president of the Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association, was also supportive of the change.
"This is welcome news for northwestern Ontario and a practical solution to a very real concern raised by our member municipalities," he said in a media release. "Our communities have strong economic, social and healthcare ties with Manitoba, and maintaining consistent time zones helps avoid unnecessary confusion and disruption."
"We appreciate that the province listened and responded."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kris Ketonen is a reporter with CBC Thunder Bay. Send story ideas to kris.ketonen@cbc.ca.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.