Viewpoint

Astronomy lecturer offers ‘third option’ in time-change debate

By Stan Shadick

The recent SUMA resolution advocating that Saskatchewan switch to Daylight Saving Time has unleashed a storm of controversy. Now we are faced with allowing politicians to choose our time-keeping system - a role that traditionally has been the responsibility of astronomers.

Stan Shadick at the U of S Observatory

Our planet’s natural timekeeper is the Sun. Its rising and setting affects our daily and nightly activities. If we used a Sundial for tracking time, we would discover that our present time system is already in error by about 1 hour. Switching to Central Daytime Time would double this error. Such political gerrymandering of the time zone map is unacceptable.

To understand this problem, try looking for the Sun at 12 noon when it is supposed to be due south. You will instead find it well east of south. If we adopted Central Daylight Time, the Sun’s southerly crossing would be delayed even more from about 1 pm at present until 2 pm.

Such a change would have unfortunate consequences overlooked by the politicians. It would create problems due to the time zone change for businesses and families wishing to communicate or travel in spring, summer or fall between Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The extra hour of evening daylight also means that students and others would have a hard time getting to sleep at night? Do we want our high school students to wake up tired when they need to write their final exams?

Stargazers would lose out in this switch. The University of Saskatchewan observatory currently draws over 7000 visitors each year. Changing to Central Daylight Time would mean that we would need to shut this tourist attraction down in summer because stars would no longer be visible until after midnight - too late for the many young families and youth groups that visit our facility. Do we really want to deny our youth the opportunity to view the rings of Saturn through a telescope?

The problem would similarly create problems for the Astronomy undergraduate programs at the University of Saskatchewan. Our university students would lose 1 hour from the time available for them to complete weekly evening telescope labs. This loss of lab time would exacerbate a shortage of lab equipment in this program.

When faced with deciding between the present system and the proposed Central Daylight time option, respondents to a recent CBC Morning Edition poll voted by a slim margin to retain our current time system. I would personally be happy to follow their wishes. The present made-in-Saskatchewan system has served us very well. A switch to Central Daylight time would be a disaster.

I do recognize the economic advantages of keeping in step with the rest of the nation and switching to daylight time in summer. Is there an acceptable compromise?

Yes there is - a Third Option that more closely follows our solar timekeeper. Let’s follow the lead of our Alberta neighbours and switch to Mountain Standard Time in winter and Mountain Daylight Time in summer. Because Alberta has twice the population of Manitoba, Saskatchewan residents have far more family and business ties with our western neighbours than our eastern cousins.

Because Mountain Daylight Time is the same as Central Standard Time, we would continue to enjoy our long summer evenings to which we have become accustomed. A change to Mountain Standard Time in winter would have the additional advantage of allowing us to rise for work or school when it is daylight instead of getting up in the dark as we are presently forced to do.

What do you think Saskatchewan? If we do need to change time systems then let’s do it right and move in step with the Sun.

Stan Shadick is an astronomy lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan and author of the Skywatcher’s Calendar 2001.