CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: Permanent Daylight Time Debate In Manitoba

Twice a year Manitobans grumble as they adjust their clocks. A private member’s bill now before the legislature would eliminate the ritual by keeping Manitoba on daylight saving time permanently. Its sponsor, Brandon-area MLA Corinne Lavallée, considers the change overdue. “Each spring costs us an hour of sleep,” she complains, “and each autumn an hour of afternoon sunshine.” She cites studies documenting a temporary rise in traffic collisions after the spring change. An online survey by her office drew more than 40,000 responses, nearly three-quarters favouring an end to the switch.

Consensus on abolishing the switch, however, is not consensus on which hour to retain. Dr. Anand Mehra, a Winnipeg sleep specialist, welcomes abolition but considers Lavallée’s choice misguided. Under her proposal the sun would not rise in Winnipeg until almost 9:30 a.m. in late December, leaving bodies misaligned with daylight all winter. “Morning light calibrates our internal clocks,” he explains. “Deprive people of it and you get groggy students and drowsy drivers.” Standard time, in his judgment, is preferable.

Marlene Gustafson, a school trustee in the Interlake region, observes that numerous pupils in her division board buses before 7:30 a.m. “Picture children waiting at the ends of country roads in pitch darkness, for months,” she urges. Her board has asked the government to consider later school start times should the bill pass.

Duncan Firth, who runs a golf course and patio restaurant near Selkirk, is ambivalent about the extra hour of winter light. What exasperates him is the disruption: staff rotas, tee times and deliveries are thrown into disarray twice yearly. “Either permanent option suits me,” he shrugs, “as long as the government commits to it.”

Prairie Policy Institute economist Paul Okonjo stresses timing. Because time zones fall under provincial jurisdiction, not Ottawa’s, Manitoba could move unilaterally, but it would then spend every winter an hour out of step with Minnesota and North Dakota, inconveniencing trucking firms, airlines and cross-border commerce. He recommends legislating now but delaying implementation until neighbours follow suit, as British Columbia and Ontario have done.

Lavallée says she is receptive to amendments when the bill reaches committee this fall.

I support ending the switch, but I think Ms. Lavallée is 6. Choose…moving far too slowlyignoring her own surveypicking the wrong time to retainright to put families’ evenings first. As a nurse on early shifts I already drive to work in darkness all winter; under her version I would still be 7. Choose…waiting for daybreakmissing the evening sunshort of an hour’s sleepstuck in rush-hour traffic at my mid-morning break. Dr. Mehra is right that 8. Choose…evening sunshinea regular bedtimean extra hour of sleepearly daylight is what keeps us alert, and I notice how hard it is to concentrate on those black December mornings.

If the bill passes as written, the least the province can do for rural families is grant Ms. Gustafson’s board its request to 9. Choose…add more bus routespush back the school daymove stops closer to homescancel classes in midwinter. Finally, Mr. Okonjo is right that Manitoba shouldn’t 10. Choose…wait for Ottawacopy Ontariogo it alonedelay the change; let’s make the move together with our neighbours.