U.S. puts Canada in time crunch
By Toronto Star
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The U.S. Congress quietly adopted a provision to extend daylight hours by two months after proponents argued the scheme would help curb energy use by cutting back on the need for artificial light in the evening. Under the legislation, part of a sweeping energy package, daylight saving time across most of the United States will now start on the first weekend in March and run through the last weekend in November. Daylight time now runs from April through October in Canada and the U.S.
"There is potential for huge confusion here, and we need to be vigilant, to look at the range of implications," said Len Crispino, president and CEO of the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.
The change, expected to take effect this fall, would mean clocks in Canada and the United States would be out of sync in March and November, causing scheduling headaches for travellers and TV viewers.
And should Canada decide to follow the American lead, farmers and rural schoolchildren, who already get up in the dark, would face even gloomier mornings.
But as things now stand, the implications for business are serious because the economies of the two countries are so integrated, said Crispino.
Businesses such as airlines, transportation and even Ontario's auto sector could be affected, since many automotive manufacturers use "just in time" delivery systems to get car parts to plants, Crispino said. And the Toronto Stock Exchange, for instance, would open and close one hour after New York's markets.
While business is waking up to the risk, the issue seems to have sneaked under the political radar in Canada. "This has not been an issue that Canadians have debated at any length," Prime Minister Paul Martin's spokesperson Scott Reid said recently.
"We'll monitor how the issue unfolds in the Congress with an eye to implications for Canadians and our industry. While most people — excepting vampires — favour more daylight there are serious issues of concern to the aviation and other industries."
Although Ontario's Attorney General Michael Bryant is said to be looking into a possible response by the province, the Prime Minister's Office was still trying to figure out yesterday which department or minister would be most concerned about the time discrepancy.
In fact, though many Canadians may think we're overgoverned, the potentially significant matter of who goes along with daylight time — moving the clock ahead an hour in the spring and back an hour in the fall — is largely left up to individual provinces, even to local municipalities, mostly on a voluntary basis. Saskatchewan, for instance, has always been a daylight time holdout, as have several communities in British Columbia and northern Quebec.
While Crispino agrees the move to extend daylight hours could lead to energy savings, his bigger concern is the additional costs for business.
Gillian Bentley, spokesperson for Calgary-based WestJet airlines, said the time change could be problematic for the carrier, especially for passengers on connecting flights, or if the airline flies into airports with night curfews.
"Obviously we would have to adjust our schedules accordingly for trans-border flights. But at this point, we're not sure exactly how much of an impact it will have," said Bentley.
Steve Kee, spokesperson for the Toronto Stock Exchange, said the exchange was monitoring events south of the border.
"If it became a competitive disadvantage to us, then we would react accordingly," said Kee.
Because of advances in technology, trading hours can be set at virtually any time, said Kee. However, the issue would be whether brokers on Bay Street would want to get up an hour earlier, for example, to go to work. In Vancouver, because of the western time zone difference, brokers are already going strong in the early morning hours.
The two U.S. congressmen who sponsored the bill, Michigan's Fred Upton and Massachusetts's Ed Markey, argued when they introduced it that the energy savings of extended daylight time could amount to 100,000 barrels of oil a day, or about 0.5 per cent of the U.S. daily oil consumption. This figure was based on experience from the oil crisis of the 1970s, when the U.S. temporarily extended daylight time as a similar, energy-saving measure.
Upton estimates the move will save the country $360 million (U.S.) for the extra 60 days that daylight time will be in effect.
Some provisions in the current energy bill are still under negotiation and it must go to the White House for the signature of President George W. Bush.
The last time the U.S. moved to extend daylight time was in 1986, when then-president Ronald Reagan signed a law that put daylight time into effect at the beginning of April, instead of the end of the month, as was the previous practice.
In Canada, nervous airlines, banks and other businesses began to fret about whether this country would go along with the change. Then, as now, it didn't seem to be a matter of pressing concern.
However, late in 1986, the Ontario government suddenly snapped to attention, passing a private member's bill that called for the province to go along with the U.S. time changes. Eventually, most of the rest of Canada also went along, and for the last eight years, daylight time has stretched from the beginning of April until the end of October.
In addition to saving energy, proponents also say extra light will cut down on crime rates and traffic fatalities. But parent organizations in the United States have raised objections because there would be more mornings during which they would be taking their children to school in the dark. American farmers, too, have voiced disapproval.
The loudest opposition, however, has come from the Air Transport Association, which has estimated that cash-strapped U.S. airlines could lose $147 million (U.S.) because they will lose European and, potentially, Canadian landing slots.
Under aviation regulations, landing slots can be maintained only if airlines use them regularly at the same time. At present, Europe and North American airlines have agreed an existing one-week gap in daylight times between the continents can be accommodated.
But Europe has already made clear it will not add another six weeks to that transition period, endangering the landing rights of a number of profitable U.S. overseas routes.
Jack Evans of the ATA said Canadian airline passengers also face a number of potential inconveniences.
He said passengers beginning in Canada and connecting to European or Asian destinations through the U.S. could find themselves without enough time to catch connectors or with far too much time — or with far fewer flight options as landing slots are lost.
Evans said he believed American lawmakers were moving ahead on the daylight saving extension without calculating the problems it causes for Canada and Latin America.
Saskatchewan has years of experience being out of sync, timewise. The province has opted to remain on Central Standard Time year round, so during the summer months it shares the same time zone as Alberta, and in the winter it is in the same time zone as Manitoba.
"It's really no big deal, you get used to it," said Cathy Gourlie, a spokesperson in the province's government relations department, which is responsible for Saskatchewan's Time Act.
"We don't have to change our clocks or our sleep times, but it does become an inconvenience when you're watching television and your program is on earlier than you thought."
Picking up friends at the Greyhound bus terminal can also be problematic, but "as long as you remember that for half a year the bus comes in at noon, and the other half of the year it comes in at 1, you'll be okay," she laughs.
But the issue of whether to opt for daylight time is still a very heated one in the province. Two years ago, Premier Lorne Calvert ruled out putting daylight time on a future referendum, saying the issue is too divisive to wade into.
As for interfering with business, Gourlie doesn't see much problem, since with interprovincial or international trade, "you're always dealing with people in different time zones anyway."
And when it comes to saving energy in Canada, a University of Toronto geography professor who specializes in energy efficiency says this country would see benefits similar to the U.S.
But Danny Harvey notes that most savings would come from lighting. And since lighting makes up only about 5 per cent of a typical residential household's electricity, the switch to two extra months won't have a "huge impact," he said. "If we turned off the lights in our office buildings at night, that would have a much bigger impact," he said.
