Pouce Coupe wants to know if you would be interested in matching Alberta time zone?
Peace River Regional District (PRRD) directors discussed the idea at their Thursday board meeting, following a letter sent by Pouce Coupe Mayor Danielle Veach.
"Every male member of my family may live in Dawson Creek and Pouce Coupe, but actually every single one of them works in Alberta," she said.
"The reality is that lot of our oil and gas workers are crossing border. It does make sense for us to be more in line with our Alberta neighbours, which we do on quite a few things, than it does to be in line with our southern neighbours."
British Columbia has largely been unified to being on the same time across the province, after a permanent adoption of daylight time as "Pacific time" this past March.
The B.C. Peace region has observed its own time zone since the 1970s when residents voted to move onto permanent Mountain Standard Time — meaning their clocks lined up with B.C. during the summer months and Alberta in the winter.
Alberta will eliminate seasonal clock changes in November, permanently remaining on Mountain Daylight Time.
Communities in B.C. have the freedom to set their own time zone, so not everyone is unified with the province.
Fort St. John Coun. Trevor Bolin says he likes the idea of matching their time zone with Alberta, as most oil and gas companies operating in northeast B.C. have head offices there.
"I for one, spent my entire life with us being six months the same as Alberta during winter months, when work is busy, when the oil patch is going, when natural gas is being drilled and exported," he said.
"Our tie in is to our partners in, and our neighbours in Alberta. I would be in favour of that."
Electoral Area E director Dan Rose says the public needs to be consulted on what they'd like to see, but agreed that the region has more in common with Alberta, noting some residents may not care or would rather it be left alone.
"I would rather we go through some sort of an exercise to gauge what the opinion is," he said. "You'd have to come up with a way to gauge opinion because people don't like change."
Hudson's Hope Mayor Travous Quibell agreed residents should be asked for their input, but said the region should also consider the administrative benefit of having the same time as the majority of the province.
"Who's going to notify Victoria that they need to broaden their working hours so that they are able to actually meet our needs?" he said.
"It's hard enough to get in touch with our regulators in Vancouver and Alberta, when we need to get business done from up here when they close at four o'clock."
Veach says some communities along the border already have their clocks matched with Alberta's.
PRRD directors voted in favour authorizing their staff to create a report regarding consideration of permanent time alignment to Mountain Daylight Time, which will be brought forward at a future meeting.
-CBC News
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