Fort Frances Town Council will meet Friday afternoon to discuss the potential elimination of the biannual clock change for daylight time.
According to an email from Fort Frances Clerk Chelsea Greig, no vote will take place at Friday’s meeting, but the foundation may be laid for such a vote in the weeks ahead, as the Nov. 1 clock change looms.
“We won’t be passing a by-law at this upcoming Special Meeting,” Greig wrote. “Due to the Town of Fort Frances pausing regular council meetings in October due to the 2026 municipal elections, a special meeting will need to be called again to pass the new bylaw if Council agrees to observe either daylight savings or standard time and eliminate the time change. This will be after Fort Frances can ascertain if it’ll be in the majority of municipalities and First Nation communities to do so.”
Any change to the practice of following daylight saving time would involve repealing a 69-year-old bylaw and its amendments and replacing it with a new one, Greig added.
The question of permanently maintaining daylight time or staying on standard time in Northern Ontario became more serious after Manitoba announced last week that it would stick to daylight time permanently as of Nov. 1 rather than “falling back” to standard time.
Council itself would not have the authority to unilaterally make a formal change—that rests with the provincial government—but it could make a strong case for an exemption. While Fort Frances is legally trapped in Ontario’s frustrating bi-annual clock-change system, Atikokan permanently bypassed the hassle decades ago through a grandfathered provincial exemption and repeated public votes.
Ontario passed the Time Amendment Act in November 2020, approving a plan to keep the province on year‑round daylight time and end the spring‑forward, fall‑back ritual. But the law has never taken effect as it requires a formal proclamation by the lieutenant-governor, and the act stipulates that the province may only switch to permanent daylight saving time once Quebec and New York State make the same move, a safeguard meant to prevent cross‑border scheduling problems.
With neither jurisdiction adopting permanent daylight time, Ontario cannot issue the proclamation, leaving the legislation fully passed but inactive.
Kenora-Rainy River MPP Greg Rickford gathered municipal and First Nations leaders together for a discussion last week after Manitoba’s announcement. In a statement issued across his social media pages, Rickford said he understands that this raises questions across his riding and for others in the region who are close to the Manitoba border.
“As we have learned today, Manitoba will move to permanent daylight saving time beginning Nov. 1. I understand residents have questions about how this change will impact businesses, services and cross-border operations,” Rickford wrote.
“In response, I have reached out to mayors and First Nations leadership throughout the riding to convene a meeting tomorrow. We need to hear directly from our local leaders to understand how this change will impact services across our community. I look forward to listening, identifying opportunities and working together to ensure the voices of Northwestern Ontario are heard and supported through this transition.”
In an interview Monday morning, Mayor Andrew Hallikas said he understands that many do not favour the bi-annual time changes.
“There’s been a lot of rumblings over the years about, I guess how troublesome it is to be changing back and forth and, and quite frankly, there’s some research that indicates it’s fairly unhealthy as well. So, we thought we should look at this and see what the consensus was,” Hallikas said.
“Minister Rickford called a meeting of leaders from the Kenora District and the Rainy River District. Kenora was represented, Red Lake, Dryden, Ignace, Emo, Rainy River, us [Fort Frances], other municipalities, First Nations, Metis, and the overwhelming consensus that came out of that meeting was that it seemed the best way for our two districts would be to go with Manitoba.”
If a consensus is gathered at Friday’s Special Meeting, a second special meeting will be held to vote on making the change.
The meeting will take place in Fort Frances Council Chambers on Friday, Sept. 26, at 1 p.m. A link to view the meeting online will be available at fortfrances.civicweb.net/Portal. A survey asking residents’ opinions is available at www.surveymonkey.com/r/BQM83Q9.
