Saskatchewan is rewriting the rulebook on time – and for Lloydminster, it’s long overdue and no travel math will be required.
The provincial government is repealing and replacing The Time Act, a piece of legislation that has governed how Saskatchewan residents set their clocks since 1966. The new Time Act, 2026 reflects what anyone who has ever scheduled a meeting across the provincial border already knows: Lloydminster runs on its own time, and it always has and travel math was required during winter.
Before 1966, Saskatchewan was a patchwork of competing local time standards – a situation that will feel familiar to anyone who has tried to coordinate a lunch order between the Alberta and Saskatchewan sides of town.
The Time Act brought order to that chaos by enshrining Central Standard Time (CST) as the provincial standard. It also created “time option areas,” allowing specific communities to hold local votes and adopt a different standard if they chose.
Most communities stuck with CST. Lloydminster did not – and neither did much of the corridor around it. “Lloydminster time” didn’t stop at the provincial border. It ran east along the highway finally changing over around Maidstone, roughly 30-60 minutes into Saskatchewan, before CST took over again.
The city follows Mountain Standard Time (MST), in winter to stay in sync with its Alberta half. Formally, until now, that arrangement has existed in a kind of legislative grey zone.
Alberta’s move ends local time travel
The legislation change comes after Alberta announced 2026 will be its final year of springing forward. Alberta is permanently locking to CST – ending the spring and fall clock shuffle.
That shift made updating Saskatchewan’s time legislation both logical and necessary. The Time Act, 2026 will allow time option areas to be formally established by regulation, giving border communities like Lloydminster the legal flexibility to align with whatever their neighbouring province decides to do next.
“While our residents have long been used to running on ‘Lloydminster time’, the differing provincial time zones often prove a little tricky for those visiting our city for work and pleasure,” said Lloydminster Mayor Gerald Aalbers.
“We welcome an updated Time Act that reflects how our border community functions day-to-day. No time travel required.”
Local MLA supports time travel extinction
Lloydminster MLA Colleen Young says the updated legislation removes one of the more unusual complications that comes with representing a riding that exists in two provinces at once.
“Straddling the border comes with its own unique set of challenges,” Young said. “Eliminating the time changes removes one of them, providing consistency for the constituents of my riding.”
For residents, the practical change is minimal – Lloydminster has effectively been living this reality for decades. What changes is that the law will finally say so out loud.
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