bjones
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While most other time zones span an area from the North Pole to the South Pole, the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador has its own time zone, which is 30 minutes ahead of the Eastern time zone, the time zone of the east coast of the United States. Even though Labrador, on Canada’s mainland, is officially part of the Newfoundland time zone, only the residents of the southeastern portion of Labrador, nearest to Newfoundland, use the Newfoundland time zone. This is due to these residents being able to pick up the television and radio broadcasts of Newfoundland.
Even if Newfoundland did not have its own time zone, it would still not be a part of the Eastern time zone. Newfoundland is, in fact, one time zone east in the Atlantic time zone. All of the residents of Labrador that do not adhere to the Newfoundland time zone follow the Atlantic time zone.
Now, to answer your question, the reason why Newfoundland has its own time zone is because when the time zones were officially adopted by Canada, Newfoundland was a Dominion of Great Britain. As a dominion, Newfoundland was considered its own sovereign country, so it had the power to officially declare a time zone for the island. When Newfoundland became a part of Canada in 1949, the residents were already used to their time zone and Canada didn’t want to force the issue.
In 1963 the elected government of the province of Newfoundland made an attempt to bring the island into the Atlantic time zone, but the public outcry was so fiercely against the proposal that they had no choice but to withdraw the proposition. That was the last time any attempt was made at eliminating the Newfoundland time zone, and so they rest of Canada and the world has accepted it.
 Posted 5124 day ago
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