Albertans of Canada are consulted on October 18th with a twisted and misleading question allowing as the only answers YES or NO.

The question put to voters is, “Do you want Alberta to adopt a year-round daylight savings time (DST), which is summer hours, eliminating the need to change our clocks twice a year?”

In French: «Voulez-vous que l’Alberta adopte l’heure d’été toute l’année, c’est-à-dire les heures d’été, ce qui élimine la nécessité de changer nos horloges deux fois par an?»

Possible answer: YES / NO

If the proposal receives more than 50% of “yes”, Alberta will permanently switch to Mountain Daylight Time (MDT), UTC-6.

At winter solstice, it would be dark in the morning in Calgary until 9:37 a.m., while the sun would rise at 9:49 a.m. in Edmonton and 10:20 a.m. in Grande Prairie, northwestern Alberta. 

Permanently, Calgary and Edmonton solar noon would be around 1:35 p.m., Grande Prairie around 1:53 p.m.

Calgari and Edmonton would show Noon o’clock at the moment of noon solar time in Thunder Bay, located 2000 km east.

If the proposal does not receive more than 50% of “yes”,  Alberta will continue to change time twice a year and will remain during winter at Mountain Standard Time (MST), UTC-7, an hour already a little off. for Grande Prairie with a solar noon around 12:53 pm. 

Since 1983 ACHED, the French Citizens’ Association for Equitable and Sustainable time, has been asking for a better time on French watches. In its press release of October 14th, there were 14 reasons to ask for a better time from our watches. Unfortunately Albertans do not have a choice of their standard natural time in the possible answers. They are asked a tempting question with the words “summer” and Savings and offered to stop the time change. 

Alberta is a Canadian province and you might think its referendum has limited scope, but bad time decisions are contagious. Governments and lobbies are passing around the recipe for extending daylight saving time which interests business and oil companies. Health and Climate are put in the backseat and are covered with misinformation or silence featuring the positive aspects of DST (summer time), and hiding the negative aspects.

Chrono scientists like Michael Antle, of the University of Calgary, Roger Godbout of the University of  Montréal, Kyle Mathewson, of the University of Alberta have been trying to inform about consequences on health.

Vote NO is recommended. A victory of yes might allow to stop time changes but at a hefty price for health and climate. There should be urgently  other paths to stop time changes ang have a better time, a nomal time closer to solar time.

For any questions or clarifications, contact achedinfo@gmail.com