Daylight savings time in Manitoba is here to stay, despite efforts to scrap it.
In January of this year, former PC MLA Cliff Graydon put forward a private member’s bill to try and make Manitoba follow standard time permanently.
Graydon says he proposed the bill because of some concerning research results.
“The big reason was the health issues that people go through when it changes in the spring and in the fall, it really affects a lot of people in a negative fashion,” said Graydon. “Some of those negative impacts end up costing people’s lives.”
Graydon cited a report from a report by MPI that stated that the number of collisions increases after the clocks jump ahead in the spring.
Graydon is not the only politician to try and scrap daylight savings time, the B.C. legislature has introduced a measure to end seasonal time changes.
B.C.’s proposed bill would shift the province to permanent daylight savings time, which it would rename “Pacific Time”.
The argument against seasonal time change is nothing new, and Graydon thinks it will be an issue that will be argued worldwide.
“It is something that’s happening all over the world, (countries) are going to stay on standard time,” said Graydon. “The European Union is one of the places, a number of states in the United States have areas that don’t change or they don’t change.
The former MLA says that governments should hold referendums and let the people voice their opinions on the time changes, and make their decisions based on that.
We will have to wait and see if Manitoba scraps the time change, but for now, clocks in the province will continue to jump forward in the spring and fall back in the fall.
