Dear Editor,
Daylight Saving Time (DST) has been practised since Roman times. That is right, even when the clocks worked with water. Back then they simply divided a day into twelve hours, whether it was a long (summer) day or a short (winter) day. Instead of putting a predetermined amount of water in the clock, they changed it according to the season in such a way that the hours would be shorter or longer to accommodate the sun time.
This was done for the same reason that it is done today: to use the daytime better.
When one finishes working, at say, 4.30pm, survives the trip back home, has the good fortune to get a snack, changes clothes and has all the good intentions of going out to do some exercise, it is already dark.
I do not understand why we do not have DST any more, as we used to. I read a few years ago in the newspaper that it was decided the time change generated too many complications in terms of administration and as such it was abolished.
It makes me wonder: How complicated can it be to change your clock one hour? It definitely is more complicated for me to reset my computer and cell phone, but not to adjust my watch twice a year.
DST has been proven not to be effective so much in terms of energy saving, but in the great increase in sport activities and decrease in road traffic accidents, which we all know we have enough of.
To me there is something else: The simple fact of all of us doing something simultaneously, even as silly as adjusting our watches, is an opportunity to remember that despite the controversies, big or small, poor or rich, and all the opposites that you may think of, we are one nation and we do things together.
Yours faithfully,
Pierre Boucher
