Watch your step, there's sarcasm afoot.

Daylight savings time is a very interesting notion. There is lots of talk on the news of the American’s plan to changing daylight savings ahead by two hours. This will give less daylight in the early morning (when people don’t use it) and more daylight in the evening (when people are still awake) and definitively conserve energy. This is going to help the power shortage and help out the global economy.

As a man from Canada, I am very concerned about the American’s power shortage. But as a man from Saskatchewan, I am not concerned in the least about upcoming changes in Daylight Savings time. Mostly the concept of Daylight Savings Time is a foreign notion to me, being born and raised in Saskatchewan. I asked one of my neighbours what he thought about Daylight Savings Time and his response was, “Daylight what? Oh, that’s when all of the TV shows change time right?”

But who wants more daylight? Who wants to be able to play an 18 round of golf after work? Who wants to have daylight at 11:00 at night? I’ll tell you, the kids in Saskatchewan are fortunate to have less daylight during the evenings because it makes for an easier game of hide and go seek when it’s dark at 10:00.

At times other people from Saskatchewan find themselves defending their province with the most intellectual defences possible. My most favourite: “The dairy cows are incapable of being switching their routine. The milk curdles if they have to produce it at an earlier or later time of the day.” This is a fantastic argument. The COWS are keeping us from having extra sunlight because they cannot change their routines. Obviously there is no solution to this problem, which is why it makes for such an impenetrable defence.

Then there is the standard argument. We have never had daylight savings time and there is nothing wrong with the system now, so why change it? Yet again, an outstanding defence. We Saskatchewan folks are natural debaters.

There are definite problems with the current system. We have had daylight savings time in the past, and it created problems. But instead of fixing the problem, we got rid of DST all together! What happens if you live on the Manitoba / Saskatchewan border, there is a time change for half of the year that makes life difficult. If you live in Alberta, there is a time change for one half of the year that yet again makes life more difficult at the same time. If I want to go over the border to visit family for a 5:00 dinner date, we’d have to leave at 3:00 just to be there in time to eat. But at 10:00, we leave and get back at 10:00. Is this not a problem with the current system?

And, by the way, how do the manitobian cows get through the time change? I wonder how it is possible that the Manitoba Dairies could change but the Saskatchewan Dairies can’t. My uncle has a Manitoba Dairy farm, I wonder if his cows are just that much more intelligent!

I asked my uncle if what I had heard about Dairy cows was true, that the milk will curdle if you alter the time frame for milking. He assured me that it was true, that if you change the cows schedule over by an hour, it will affect their production. (although the milk does not curdle, it does affect the amount of milk that the cows can produce). However, to solve this problem, simply wake up an hour earlier or later to accommodate the cows! Or, change the cows schedule by 15 minutes for 2 days at a time until they are back on the proper schedule. Wow, it seems that it is not the Manitoba cows that are more intelligent, but the Manitoba farmers!

Stupidity drives me nuts.

The main argument that is rarely spoken about is the same argument for Bush’s push to change Daylight Savings Time in the US. SaskPower is a crown corporation owned by the province of Saskatchewan, and if Saskatchewan went on Daylight savings time, we would have more daylight, with would facilitate less of a need for power, which would reduce the annual earnings of SaskPower. While the American’s are trying to mend the energy crisis, Saskatchewan Parliament is doing the opposite for monetary reasons.