On April 23, 2026, Bill 31 — Red Tape Reduction Statutes Amendment Act, 2026 was officially introduced in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. On the Assembly Dashboard, the bill is listed as a government bill that passed its first reading (1R) on April 23. The sponsor is listed as Dale Nelli, Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction.
What exactly does Bill 31 propose
The part of Bill 31 that is most important to the majority of the province’s residents concerns time. The bill proposes amending the Daylight Saving Time Act: renaming it the Official Time Act, and specifying that “official time” in Alberta means a time that is 6 hours behind Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). The document explicitly states that within Alberta, no other time may be used or officially observed except this “official time”.
What this means in practice
In effect, this means the government is proposing to end the seasonal clock change. The current version of the law, which Bill 31 seeks to replace, states that Mountain Standard Time is UTC-7, and Daylight Saving Time is one hour ahead of that, effectively UTC-6. The current law also requires Alberta to switch to daylight saving time every year from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. The new bill eliminates this seasonal schedule and proposes keeping the province on UTC-6 year-round.
How this will affect the local level
Another important detail is that the bill extends this rule not only to government documents but also to the local level. Bill 31 explicitly states that municipalities and Métis settlements will not be able to adopt their own rules regarding a different time, and any local ordinance providing for a different time regime will be invalid. In other words, this is not merely a symbolic change to the name of the law, but an attempt to establish a single fixed time for all of Alberta.
What the government said before introducing the bill
Interestingly, just one week before introducing Bill 31, the government spoke cautiously about the time issue as a matter still under review. During questions in the Alberta Hansard on April 15, 2026, Minister Dale Nelli said that the government was “taking a fresh look” at the research and at what Albertans are saying. In other words, very little time passed between the political signal that the issue was being reconsidered and the actual introduction of the bill.
Conclusion
So, the news is that the Alberta government has introduced a bill to abolish daylight saving time. If it is passed and later enacted, the province will switch to permanent UTC-6 time, meaning it will effectively remain on the current summer time all year round. But as of now, this is not yet a law, but a legislative initiative that has only just begun its passage through the legislature.