Talk:Date and time notation in Canada

The Windows date for English Canada (default) is actually MMMM-DD-YY.

"No leading zero in default longdate - and no dashes either."(from this article's edit history) It's not true for me, because when I reset to the default formats, the date really is "MMMM-DD-YY", and not "MMMM D, YYYY"

69.196.168.234 (talk) 21:06, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Disputed accuracy

The lead of this article makes it seem as if the source TBITS 36: All-Numeric Representation of Dates and Times -Implementation Criteria supports the idea that ISO-8601 has been adopted as the standard date and time notation in Canada. But that document doesn't even adopt the bulk of ISO 8601; it doesn't address time notation at all. Furthermore, that source only addresses itself to machine-readable data exchange among government departments and agencies. It says naught about use by the general public or private businesses. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:30, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

I live in Canada, and have NEVER seen a form or bank statement that begins with YYYY. It is usually written out, APR 12, 2014. A store receipt here says 09/20/13, another says 12/19/2013, and they are generally split between MM/DD/YYYY and DD/MM/YYYY, which is confusing when it is 03/03/14. But this article is utter nonsense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.147.122.14 (talk) 21:26, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

The previous entry is not true. I am looking at my BC Driver's License. The date is YYYY-MMM-DD. The DD is using a leading 0, and the MMM is the abbreviated month, e.g. Aug. So clearly some government agencies ARE using the YYYY format, if not true ISO. V-squared (talk) 22:56, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

The statement referred to above is true. Notations vary and real world documents in Canada, such as cheques and statements, will rarely begin with the year. A cheque date is MM DD YYYY at my institution. The ISO focus of the article fails to adequately address the subject. It may be important, but broader info is needed to give readers a sense of what time and date notations to expect from Canadians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.121.59.101 (talk) 21:22, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

What institution? Bank of Montreal cheques have been YYYY MM DD for at least a decade, at least in my chequebook. V-squared (talk) 00:45, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I've rewritten the article with sufficient references and will remove the tag of shame if nobody objects. --Cornellier (talk) 16:28, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Done. --Cornellier (talk) 21:16, 12 July 2015 (UTC)

Time notation missing

Suggest the title should be "Date notation in Canada" - there is no mention of time notation in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Outjet (talk • contribs) 02:23, 16 June 2016 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion:

• Canadian National timetable 1975-04-27.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 22:24, 9 June 2019 (UTC)

Timezone

@Joeyconnick: Could you clarify why you're insisting on UTC? If the formats are only meant to be examples, why are they dynamic? Why not just make them static at some arbitrary time in the past? Say for example, 1997-12-31 14:56. The way they are now, they're in the future for someone reading from Canada, which is confusing. Though if the page mentioned that they're in UTC, it wouldn't be as bad.

I realize ET isn't the only timezone in Canada of course (I used to live in NS myself), but it's at least a timezone in Canada; no part of Canada is in UTC, or even within 2 hours for that matter. And ET is arbitrary to an extent, but it's used by the capital, largest city, and about 61% of the population (ON and QC). That said, I'd be fine with another timezone in Canada, like Newfoundland Time since it's the earliest, or Pacific Time since it's the latest, as long as it's indicated.

I should also mention that the equivalent US page had its infobox in ET, so I switched it to UTC like you did here, but then @Jc3s5h switched it back to ET. Personally I prefer ET there for the same reasons as here: capital, largest city, and a good chunk of the population.

— W.andrea (talk) 21:34, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

For the time being, I've indicated that the dates/times are in UTC, which I think is a reasonable compromise between clarity and not preferring any particular timezone.

— W.andrea (talk) 21:43, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I have no idea why it's dynamic—I assume so it doesn't seem super-dated one, five, ten years from now. But the fact remains it's clearly not meant to actually provide the time in Canada since it literally can't as it only covers one timezone. I get what you mean about a good chunk of the population, but in the absence of something that can cover all timezones in the country, it seems like a better idea to use a default timezone and UTC fits that bill. If we only had one timezone, I think then picking that timezone would be appropriate but the fact remains that ET is not the timezone for over a 1/3 of the population. Maybe a static example would be better, as that seems to be what is used in the article body. I'm guessing it's dynamic simply because it can be... and whoever thought "gee that's neat!" didn't think past the neat factor. —Joeyconnick (talk) 23:45, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't need a time zone at all. I never noticed it until this discussion. I'm planning to remove it because it does make it seem as though the time zone is used in Canada. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:36, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

I see, it's a function. We should simply have it use the browser's setting rather than UTC. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:38, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

MDY or DMY first

Stating that MDY is more common than DMY in Canada is not an "unsourced assertion", but then again, there's really nowhere to add a source. For instance, the date ordering was added by @AndrewNJ: on 2018-10-30T13:51:21 without any sources. In a CBC article that states we're "a country where people use both the "month/day/year and day/month/year formats", so they're not much help, but MDY is the format they use (but many of their other manuals of style are odd). However, we've had this discussion before, but not on this article. You know what. I don't really have a leg to stand on. You know you're wrong, but I'm not willing to argue with over it. Walter Görlitz (talk) 03:21, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

To clarify, my reversion earlier in September was only intended to relate to the bulleted list in the infobox; I overlooked your intervening change to its date order. A case can be made for listing either MDY or DMY first. Anecdotally, MDY seems slightly more common in my experience, but someone has queried that statement, and I do not have a sense of how much this differs by industry and region. Like you, I have not been able to find a recent source that indicates anything more than both date formats being in use. I had originally listed DMY first when I rewrote the article because I had taken it as narrowly more official (e.g. being used in the Canadian passport), but especially because of the recommendation of several style guides, including the Canadian Style, to use it for academic purposes, reports, and international audiences (especially when using a large number of dates, as even the Chicago Manual of Style recommends, and that certainly applies here). I was also initially cribbing the federal government's FAQs on Writing the Date page, which lists a DMY date as the first example. I don't think it matters which is listed first, as long as it's clear that Canadians use both. AndrewNJ (talk) 12:04, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

Sourcing again

Again, the requirement to cite sources is causing this article to be very inaccurate and misleading. The article overwhelmingly cites government sources, but outside of government, government style (really federal government style) is rarely used; most marketing texts are written in CP style, for example (if they even follow a style). Edited style don’t even reflect real-world usage.

The claim that le is omitted only when followed by the day of the week or on documents for administrative purposes, for example, is wrong (it’s often omitted on posters, for example), but the sentence is unfixable if we have to source our corrections.—al12si (talk) 23:16, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

If you are going to keep going off on the requirement to source things (like, IMAGINE THAT at an encyclopedia 🙄), please feel free to just stop editing because that requirement is a core foundational principle of the project and you need to make your peace with it. —Joeyconnick (talk) 04:28, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

How is TTC usage irrelevant? It shows that (1) 24-hour is not universal in transportation, and (2) it’s not universal even in government. A lot of knowledge in the editing field isn’t going to be in sources.

If this is how you want this article to be, fine. — al12si (talk) 04:48, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

PS: I see that you’re also fr-2, so I don’t know if I’m talking to a fellow Canadian. But if you are, you already know the article, as written, is wrong; you’re just placing too much trust on your citations

And if you’re not actually in the editing field, you won’t know The Canadian Style is hardly used by anyone. — al12si (talk) 19:42, 6 December 2023 (UTC)