The right questions weren’t asked on time change referendum

By Letter to the Editor on October 30, 2021.

Editor:
It’s very sad that having given Albertans a say on the long standing controversy of Daylight Saving Time (DST), Jason Kenney and the UCP party managed to screw it up by simply not asking the right questions.
The final tally shows that of those who voted, 49.8 per cent wanted to stay on DST year-round and 50.2 per cent wanted to continue changing the clock in spring and fall. Hardly a clear indication.
Interestingly, opinion polls over the last few years indicated that a majority of Albertans wanted to do away with the twice annual time change but were divided on Daylight time versus Mountain time. 
Immediately after the vote a number of pundits (professional or otherwise), stated that the wrong question had been asked, insofar as a lot of people would have voted to stay on Mountain Standard Time (MST) year round, but instead chose to keep things the way they are changing the clocks twice each year.
But it wasn’t so much a case of the wrong question being asked as it was that the right questions weren’t asked. The referendum should have been a choice between three questions being: 1) Do you favour staying on Daylight Saving Time year round; 2) Do you favour staying on Mountain Standard Time year round; 3) Do you favour changing the clocks twice annually in spring and fall?
Immediately people would argue that if a majority favoured 1 and 2, it would leave an unclear message about which option would be implemented. Good point, but at least the question of changing the clocks twice annually or not would have been more clear. The issue of which time would be implemented, that could have been resolved in a pre-vote explanation of the results. The government could have stated if the majority voted option 1 and 2, but if there was not a clear majority between 1 and 2, the government would decide based on technical and economic factors of each for Alberta.
Now nothing has been clearly resolved. 
 Lutz Perschon
Medicine Hat