Despite an all-party committee – made up mostly of NDP members – recommending unanimously that daylight saving time remain in Alberta, Premier Rachel Notley said the idea isn’t dead.
“I would say that actually it’s not gone,” she said in Calgary Tuesday. “There were some good points that were raised and I think there is more research and work that needs to be done around it, but I think it’s still an open question.”
The committee had conducted surveys and hearings on NDP MLA Thomas Dang’s private member’s bill, which would have put Alberta on the same time as Saskatchewan year-round and two hours ahead of British Columbia.
The NDP says the response was huge, with roughly 20,000 responses, mostly supporting the idea.
But NDP member Karen McPherson said it would hurt businesses.
“That’s certainly not something we want to see happen, we certainly don’t want to see that happen at this time in our province’s history when the economy is front of mind for many, many people,” McPherson said.
Fellow NDP member Michael Connolly said the province would suffer it went forward alone.
“We do have to work with the other jurisdictions in Canada, we’ve heard that from many of our stakeholders, doing it unilaterally would not benefit Alberta the way we hope it would,” he said.
But notwithstanding the recommendation, it will still return to the legislature in the form of the original private member’s bill.
Notley said she certainly wants to seek out more information on the economic concerns, but given legislative committees usually get a small fraction of the kind of response this one got, she wants to hear more.
“The vast majority were in favour of moving forward on it, but there’s no question, it’s not quite as simple as it seems when you first discuss it and that’s why it’s good to do some research,” she said.
But Notley doesn’t endorse the idea of a referendum on the subject, because of its cost.
“The sample that came through the work of the committee is pretty indicative of where Albertans stand on the matter,” she said.
