A Matter of Time

OTTAWA - A new poll exclusive to CanWest/Global suggests half of Canadians do not want to follow the United States on extending daylight saving time.

Fewer than half of respondents, 47%, said Canada should follow the U.S. lead, and 50% said they want to keep their provincial time the way it is, according to the survey conducted by Ipsos-Reid. Three per cent did not know.

On Monday, U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law an energy bill that extends daylight saving time for one month, an attempt to lower the country's energy consumption. Beginning in 2007, U.S. daylight saving time will start three weeks earlier in the spring and end one week later in the fall.

If Canada does not match the change, the time difference is expected to complicate things for business. But John Wright, senior vice-president at Ipsos-Reid, said the poll suggests Canadians are thinking beyond commerce.

"We may have a bit of pro-Canadianism here," he said, adding Canadians may see the decision less as a North American move to save energy and more as a unilateral one bearing the fingerprints of the Bush administration.

"It's again seen as something that, unilaterally, is undertaken with no consideration given to other countries which may be affected by it," Mr. Wright said.

It's time for the Liberals to invoke the sacred memory of Sir Sandford Fleming, the great Canadian who gave the world standard time, and pledge that daylight saving time is a Canadian value that will not be changed for some American system of two-tier time!

Maude Barlow and Naomi Klein will denounce the U.S. for hogging the world's precious supply of daylight, depriving the Third World so that ADM and Monsanto can grow more genetically modified monster crops.

Somehow Israel will be to blame for convincing the Americans to turn back the clock on the Middle East peace process, leaving the oppressed peoples of Palestine and Iraq in the dark about their own future.

France will condemn American unilateralism and demand that the U.S. submit its proposal to the U.N., while the European Union moves ahead with its own crazy scheme for a single pan-European time zone, from Iceland to the Urals.

And somehow, the trains will still run on time.

Source: National Post