The NWT won’t soon follow the Yukon in ditching daylight savings, the premier says, in part because of the work involved in letting Apple and Google know.
In 2022, 87 percent of people responding to a GNWT survey said they wanted to scrap daylight savings.
Doing so would mean the territory stays on one time all year – either permanent daylight savings time or permanent standard time – rather than switching back and forth in spring and fall.
The Yukon has already taken that step.
Responding to questions in the legislature from Great Slave MLA Kate Reid, Premier RJ Simpson said he was all in favour of abandoning daylight savings but it’s a “more labour-intensive and much more complicated task than people might expect.”
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For example, Simpson said a Yukon report into how its switchover went noted that getting big tech firms to recognize the change was an issue.
“There is not one entity that you go to and say, ‘I want to get off daylight savings time, I want to stick with a permanent time.’ We have to reach out to Microsoft, Apple, Google, a number of these different companies,” he said.
The premier said the Yukon had hoped to avoid needing to catch tech giants’ attention on its own by piggybacking on a similar move by British Columbia, but BC ended up pulling out.
“It showed the difficulties of a small jurisdiction in making that a reality,” Simpson said.
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“You had staff from the Yukon government on the phone with the 1-800 customer service number to companies like Microsoft, trying to make this happen.
“Unless we have a big jurisdiction leading the way and getting the attention of these companies, it is quite difficult and quite resource-intensive.”
Alberta is the only realistic candidate to be that jurisdiction for the NWT, but the province doesn’t look likely to make the leap itself.
In a 2021 vote, Albertans elected by a narrow margin to keep daylight savings as-is.
“I’ve been preaching about living within our means and ensuring that we are at least providing the basics before we do anything else,” said Simpson on Tuesday.
“The thing that needs to happen is Alberta needs to get on board.”
