Talk:Time in Canada

Rank for number of time zones changed

Where does this information come from? no reference or real explanation. From the main Time Zone#Additional Information page

“ Russia has eleven time zones, including Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea. France also has eleven time zones including those of France, French Guiana and numerous islands, inhabited and uninhabited. The United States has ten time zones (nine official plus that for Wake Island and its Antarctic stations). Australia has nine time zones (one unofficial and three official on the mainland plus four for its territories and one more for an Antarctic station not included in other time zones). The United Kingdom has eight time zones for itself and its overseas territories. Canada has six official time zones. ”

But this isn't cited either.

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Pacific Time (British Columbia) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 19:46, 4 March 2026 (UTC)

Pacific Time

Sorry if this is partially a repeat of what I have posted at Talk:Pacific_Time_(British_Columbia). Pacific Time is, in my opinion not a new Canadian time zone. The BC government elected to join Yukon and Arizona by permanently switching its clocks to UTC-7. There is already a name for UTC-7 — it is called Mountain Standard Time. This name has been in existence since 1883 and is well documented in federal legislation in both Canada and the USA. Calling it anything other than its well established name will only serve to confuse. As seen by the eyes of the Canadian Government and the rest of the world, it will still be Mountain Standard Time.

There is some sordid history here:

• In 2019 the BC government prepared for what it thought would be a coordinated effort by Yukon and all the US states along the Pacific coast to switch to year-round UTC-7.
• As part of that preparation, the government created the 2019 Interpretation Amendment Act. The act was not supposed to go into force until all the affected states and Yukon were ready to adopt the change.
• For reasons not fully understood, the BC government assumed that the affected states, provinces, and territories would want to redefine the term Pacific Time instead of declaring a time change to Mountain Standard Time. Thus the 2019 act explicitly defines the name of BC's time zone as Pacific Time.
• Last week the BC government made a decision to put the 2019 Interpretation Amendment Act into force without waiting for California, Oregon, or Washington. The wording in the act was left unchanged because any changes to the act would likely have meant a delay of another year.
• The result is that we now have completely incompatible definitions of the term Pacific Time on each side of the international border.

Encouraging the use of the term Pacific Time to mean UTC-7 will serve nobody well. Wikipedia should document the fact that BC is in Mountain Standard Time year round instead trying to deny it. Same as was done for Yukon. References to Pacific Time in regard to BC should only be comprised of some short comments stating that BC government has attempted to redefine the term for its own purposes but any redefinition of the term is inconsistent with its use outside of BC.

Also, I know some people are claiming that as of March 8, 2026 BC will be on permanent Pacific Daylight Time. The media and the government spokespeople like to make this claim because the general public understands what it means. However, the 2019 legislation does not officially describe BC's time as being on Pacific Daylight Time or PDT. Ditto for Yukon's 2020 legislation. All areas of Canada that do not change the clocks twice a year are considered to be in one of the four Standard Time zones: MST, CST, EST, or AST. Where the legislation for theses region exists, there is never any reference to permanent daylight saving time. This is why my time zone maps to not apply PDT, MDT, CDT, EDT labels to areas that don't change their clocks. MapGrid (talk) 19:54, 5 March 2026 (UTC)

The name Pacific Time absolutely does appear in legislation: https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/laws/astat/sbc-2019-c-41/199250/sbc-2019-c-41.html

Epistemenical (talk) 02:22, 15 March 2026 (UTC) Epistemenical (talk) 02:22, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

Yes, Epistemenical, the name Pacific Time does appear in the legislation. I don't think anybody is disputing that. MapGrid (talk) 02:58, 15 March 2026 (UTC)

FYI: Alternate Map

I am not asking for anything here. This is just to say that I uploaded an alternate map to Wikimedia Commons that includes time zones of Canada and neighboring lands. Neighboring lands is supposed to mean all land areas that are not part of Canada but happen to fit within the rectangular bounds of the map. I have no specific plans to use the new map anywhere, but it may be of interest to some of you that watch this page. I know some of you may ask me to do a map like this for all of North America. The answer will probably be "it is possible but not right now"! Some of you will ask me why I left two time zone regions off the east coast of Greenland. The answer to that is that one of them switched to West Greenland Time not too long ago and the other is so far north that it falls above the top edge of the map. File:Canada time zone map with neighbours- en.svg MapGrid (talk) 23:16, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

I ended up adding the new map as an alternate in the Time Zones of Canada template. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MapGrid (talk • contribs) 13:42, 10 March 2026 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:Time zones of Canada § Mountain Time Zone

 You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:Time zones of Canada § Mountain Time Zone. Joeyconnick (talk) 01:25, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

Alberta

I think that yesterday's updates to this page might have been a bit premature. The legislation did pass Royal Assent yesterday, however, a proclamation via an Order in Council is required before the legislation takes effect. We have no idea when that proclamation will take place; there is no definitive proof that it will happen this year. Please correct me if I am wrong about this. MapGrid (talk) 17:30, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

I think you’re right – the Alberta change is not in effect yet. It took some time find the actual bill (it’s part of Bill 31 “Red Tape Reduction Statutes Amendment Act 2026” 🙄), and the section pertaining the Daylight Saving Time Act says “This section comes into force on proclamation”, so some further action by the Cabinet is needed after royal assent. Indefatigable (talk) 18:35, 15 May 2026 (UTC)

I believe the issue, is that although they've passed the legislation to end clock changes, they are yet to decide what the new time zone will be (UTC-7 or UTC-6). Consultation is still underway. Naturally Alberta is about just over half in -8 (including Calgary and Edmonton) and half in -7, so one could argue that either is permanent daylight time! I suspect that any changes won't happen until at least 2027 at this rate, unless it is proclaimed very soon. Nfitz (talk) 20:32, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

@Nfitz: Sorry but I disagree. The offset from UTC is already chosen. Bill 31 clearly states: "In this Act, “official time” means the time 6 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time.".

At the bottom of that section of the bill is a line that reads: "This section comes into force on Proclamation.". As of today (May 26, 2026) there is no hint of when that Proclamation might come. But, yes, I agree with you that changes this year are unlikely unless the Proclamation comes very soon. MapGrid (talk) 21:56, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Ah, interesting. Similar to Ontario's situation. If Quebec could get it's act together, I'd think most would switch. Polling there is 90%+ in favour of time changes. So I expect the page will all become simpler in the next few years. Nfitz (talk) 22:09, 26 May 2026 (UTC)

Interesting that CBC Sports is discussing it like Alberta takes effect this fall - https://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/nhl/nhl-bc-alberta-daylight-saving-9.7221209. Nfitz (talk) 23:41, 2 June 2026 (UTC)

CBC, Global, CTV, etc latched on to verbal comments made by Dale Nally and Danielle Smith back in April. All of the news articles published at the time made it seem like permanent UTC-6 was done deal and therefore clocks would not fall back in November 2026. The Internet (search engines, chatbots, social media, etc) latched onto those news articles and believed they were fact. As far as I can tell, the government did not issue any press release (written or verbal) when the legislation received Royal Assent on May 14. To date, the government has been silent on any plans (or lack of plans) for Proclamation. MapGrid (talk) 01:45, 3 June 2026 (UTC)

Ironically we tend to follow secondary sources above primary sources on many issues! This has clusterfuck written all over it. (I agree though that our current approach seems right to me). Nfitz (talk) 18:52, 4 June 2026 (UTC)

Just a note - looks like shortly after I posted that consultation link on May 26, they changed the status to "completed" without any further information. For whatever that's worth. Nfitz (talk) 18:09, 5 June 2026 (UTC)

Map of canada

Alberta and northwest territoires stop changes and cranbrook BC stops it too. The map is not valid

Timeanddate.com i went and check everything for canada ~2026-30981-50 (talk) 18:39, 24 May 2026 (UTC)

• See section above on Alberta.
• NWT may update its legislation, but it has not done so yet and there are no firm dates.
• The Regional District of East Kootenay (which contains the city of Cranbrook) voted in March to adopt permanent UTC-7, but then they rescinded the vote due to public push back.

I am holding off making changes to the map until we know exactly what is going to happen on November 1, 2026. The maintainers of the TZDB are also holding off making changes at this time. If Alberta acts responsibly, it will not put the new legislation into force until 2027 so that the airlines and the IT world have time to react. The other regions are likely to follow whatever Alberta does. MapGrid (talk) 01:30, 25 May 2026 (UTC)