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1972 British Columbia time plebiscite

Canadian time zone referendum

Field	Value
name	British Columbia time referendum
title	Are you in favour of Pacific Standard time, including Pacific Daylight Saving time, as it is applicable now throughout the province?
country	British Columbia
date
yes	11,471
no	21,236
invalid	797
total	33,504
mapdivision	riding

A referendum was held in British Columbia on August 30, 1972, simultaneously with a general election. The actual referendum only took place in four electoral districts and part of a fifth, all in the northeast or southeast parts of the province. The purpose of the vote was to determine which areas favoured following Mountain Time rather than Pacific Time and whether to follow daylight saving time or not. All areas chose to follow Mountain Time.

Lead-up

The referendum was the result of events in Alberta where, in 1971, Albertans voted to enact daylight saving time. Areas in the Peace River Country and Southeast were economically tied to Alberta, and hence were also on Mountain Time.

The question was:

Are you in favour of Pacific Standard time, including Pacific Daylight Saving time, as it is applicable now throughout the province?

Results

Only four ridings and part of a fifth took part in the referendum. The two ridings in the northeastern part of the province were North Peace River and South Peace River. The two ridings in the southeastern part were Columbia River and Kootenay. Residents of Nelson-Creston east of an imaginary line running through Kootenay Lake and the Kootenay River that bisected that riding also took part.

District	Yes	Percentage	No	Percentage	Rejected	Total
Columbia River	1366	34.95	2445	62.56	97	3908
Kootenay	4583	35.04	8123	62.11	372	13078
East part of Nelson-Creston	1900	49.39	1947	50.61	0	3847
North Peace River	1769	29.83	4079	68.77	83	5931
South Peace River	1853	27.49	4642	68.87	245	6740
Total	11471	34.24	21236	63.38	797	33504

Aftermath

The result of the referendum was Mountain Time being used instead of Pacific Time in places that rejected Pacific Time (which had been province-wide).

The northeast is on Mountain Standard Time year-round, without daylight saving time. In practice, this means that time there is identical with Alberta's in the winter and the rest of BC's in summer. The southeast is similar, with most of the applicable area on Mountain Time and following DST. The Creston area is exceptional, ignoring DST. This puts that town in a situation similar to the northeast.

Since the time referendum the issue has flared up in Creston politics at least twice. At least two referendums have been held, neither of which succeeded in changing the status quo.

In 2014 residents of Fort Nelson voted in favour of switching from Pacific Time with DST to year-round Mountain Standard Time.

References

Mike Crawley. (1996-04-06). "Not everyone in B.C. will be turning clock forward tonight: The Peace River region and the Kootenay town of Creston stay on standard time all year while the rest of us go to daylight time". [[Vancouver Province]].
"Time Plebiscite". [[Elections BC]].
"Winter Time Zones". National Research Council.
"Summer Time Zones". National Research Council.
H. David Matthews & Mary Vincent. (September–October 1998). "It's About Time". [[Canadian Geographic]].
(2014-11-15). "Fort Nelson votes in favour of changing time zone - Energeticcity.ca". Energeticcity.ca.

Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

1972-referendums referendums-in-british-columbia time-in-canada daylight-saving-time-in-canada 1972-elections-in-canada 1972-in-british-columbia august-1972-in-canada

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