1 Pm Pst To Saskatchewan Time

[Erminia Scharnberg]

Thecity of Lloydminster and several small communities around Lloydminster are the only exceptions to this arrangement. Located partly in Saskatchewan and partly in Alberta, Lloydminster observes Mountain Time year-round, and it changes its clocks forward to Mountain Daylight Time each summer. The smaller communities around the city that also change time include Marsden, Neilburg, Marshall, Lashburn and Maidstone. Because of this, the time in Saskatchewan is the same in all parts of the province during summer months only.

During the summer, clocks in the entire province match those of Calgary, Edmonton and Denver. During the winter, clocks in most of the province outside Lloydminster match those of Winnipeg and Chicago.

With respect to some province-wide matters, such as provincial elections, Central Standard Time is effectively used province-wide. This means that during any provincial general election held when Daylight Saving Time is not in effect in Lloydminster, polls in that city will open and close an hour earlier local time compared to the rest of the province. For other matters (for example, liquor laws), the local time is always the effective time in Lloydminster.

In the early part of the 21st century, discussion was renewed over whether Saskatchewan should change its clocks seasonally to be synchronised with other provinces' practice. By extension, the question was raised whether to return to the Mountain Time Zone (which would set clocks backward an hour in winter from their current observation), or to remain in the Central Time Zone (which would set clocks forward an hour in summer from their current observation, effectively enacting double Daylight Saving Time). Premier Brad Wall had pledged to hold a referendum in the 2011 provincial election, but he later decided against it, saying it would be a waste of money since polls consistently showed a strong majority favoured the status quo.

Due to these discrepancies, many computer programs and major operating systems offer a distinct "Saskatchewan" option when listing time zone options that automatically disables seasonal clock changes for Daylight Saving. In the tz database, both the America/Regina and America/Swift_Current entries result in Saskatchewan time.

The current wording of the Time Act dictates "Central standard time shall be used and observed throughout the year", which is defined to be "the time that is six hours behind Greenwich time". With respect to mean solar time, however, this translates into Saskatchewan effectively being on Daylight Saving Time year-round.[2] In the map above, Saskatchewan is the rectangle of Central Standard Time protruding into Mountain Standard Time in Canada, visually displaying that geographically, Saskatchewan is in the Mountain Time Zone.

A number of pages on the Government of Saskatchewan's website have been professionally translated in French. These translations are identified by a yellow box in the right or left rail that resembles the link below. The home page for French-language content on this site can be found at:

Software-based translations do not approach the fluency of a native speaker or possess the skill of a professional translator. The translation should not be considered exact, and may include incorrect or offensive language. The Government of Saskatchewan does not warrant the accuracy, reliability or timeliness of any information translated by this system. Some files or items cannot be translated, including graphs, photos and other file formats such as portable document formats (PDFs).

The Government of Saskatchewan is responsible for The Time Act. This Act was introduced to allow the people of Saskatchewan to have one uniform time in the summer, but allowed areas on the western side of the province to vote on whether to observe MST or CST during the winter months.

During the summer months all of Saskatchewan observes CST. Only the Battle River (Lloydminster) Time Option area follows MST during the winter. The rest of the province observes CST year round. Theoretically, Saskatchewan is located within the MST zone, so for most of the province clocks are one hour advanced from this.

Canada passed legislation in 1890 establishing time divisions to come into force after July 1, 1891. The Act indicated that "the territories of Saskatchewan and Assiniboia shall use 105th meridian time, seven hours slower than Greenwich." The Act also authorized the provinces to alter the time as the need arose.

Saskatchewan passed legislation declaring MST as the time to be used for the province, originally in 1909. The Act was reinterpreted in 1920, 1930 and 1940 and was repealed in 1959, but "stated that any official reference to time shall be deemed to be Mountain Standard Time".

Before the implementation of The Time Act in 1966, the question of time was the responsibility of municipalities. Under The Cities Act and The Towns Act, bylaws could be passed at any time by conducting a plebiscite on the question of observed time. This resulted in a patchwork of time zones in Saskatchewan with communities using Central Standard Time (CST), MST or Daylight Saving Time (DST) as their local time.

On October 31, 1956, under The Municipal Elections -The Time Plebiscite Act, Saskatchewan held a province wide plebiscite on the choice of local time zones. The majority of the urban voters favoured CST, while the rural areas favoured MST. Voters were equally split on DST.

In what government considered a compromise solution to establishing uniform time, effective April 27, 1958, legislation was passed switching the entire province to CST until October, and MST for the winter months. The government chose not to enforce this legislation and the result was chaos as dozens of communities in the southeast refused to change to MST in the fall of 1958.

A Time Committee consisting of representatives of Saskatchewan School Trustees Association, the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities and the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association was set up in the summer of 1962.

One of the conclusions of the Time Committee was that "the observance of one uniform time throughout the province all year for instance, would work except that the people of the province will never agree on whether it should be Mountain or Central Time."2

In 1878, Sir Sanford Fleming proposed a plan to standardize time that would divide the earth into 24 standard time zones. Each of the time zones was to be one hour different from neighbouring zones. Each zone was defined equally on either side of a standard meridian. Meridians were placed every 15 degrees of longitude around the earth's surface. If a person were to measure the width of a time zone at a line of latitude in North America, it would average 800 miles. This is an approximate measure since actual time zones have irregular boundaries.

A time zone is the unit representing the difference in time between a given location and Universal Time (UT) or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), using Greenwich, England as a base at 0 degrees. The difference is positive if the local time is later than UT and negative if it is earlier.

Notes:

degree symbol.

1 This shows the degree longitude from Greenwich England starting at 0 prime meridian. A standard meridian is located at the centre of a time zone, and 7.5 east and west of the standard meridian makes one time zone.

In theory, Saskatchewan is located within the Mountain Standard Time (MST) zone. The 105 degree standard meridian for MST runs approximately down the middle of the province, and 7.5 degrees east and west of that standard meridian falls within the MST zone. The eastern boundary should be at 97 30' west longitude (a north-south line passing about 20 miles west of Winnipeg, Manitoba). A western boundary of the time zone should be at 112 30' west longitude (a north-south line passing about 20 miles east of Lethbridge). 1

In February 1966, Earl R. V. Milton, Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Saskatchewan Regina Campus, submitted a report on time to the then Premier of Saskatchewan, Ross Thatcher, for government's consideration. Dr. Milton was the only professional astronomer in Saskatchewan at that time. The report included a basic definition of time, the development of timekeeping, and the evolution of a standardized system of time zoning in use in North America.

Milton provided an argument for MST through the comparison of clock error for points in Saskatchewan using CST and MST. The further from a central meridian a location lies, the greater the clock error. Milton indicated "to be included in an idealized time zone, the clock error of any location must not exceed thirty minutes."4

It was not until 1966 that The Time Act was passed in the Saskatchewan legislature. The "solution" was a refinement of the 1958 compromise, made to satisfy all interests and resulted in the rather unique situation that exists in Saskatchewan with respect to MST and CST.

Time option areas generally correspond to school divisions within western Saskatchewan. Section 9 of The Time Act sets out specific requirements for establishing time option areas, and also establishes current time option areas for western Saskatchewan listed as a schedule to the Act.

DST was implemented during the First and Second World Wars as an emergency wartime measure to save electricity and fuel. However its use has continued since the First World War in many areas, mainly during the summer months.

DST is the adoption of the standard time of the adjacent time zone lying east of any location. The clock is advanced one hour or runs continually fast by one hour. When using DST, the sun rises one hour later, noon occurs one hour later and the sun sets one hour later than when using standard time calculated from the local time zone meridian. For example, 10:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time is 11:00 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

Legislation regarding the use of DST is provincial. DST is adopted by nearly all communities in Canada and the Lloydminster area (Battle River time option area) in Saskatchewan. This area follows the same time as Alberta, (MST during the winter months and CST during the summer).

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