The five minute difference

You know how my columnist colleague and good friend Steve Campbell is always ranting about how the County should consider separating from the rest of Ontario? Not physically— although putting our shoulders to the wheel and moving it a little further away from Toronto does have a certain appeal, so long as we don’t end up moving closer to Ottawa or the States—but legally, with our own government and tax system. Are we on for that?

With the greatest of respect to my colleague, and without seeking to minimize his grievances, I think undergoing a separation is biting off a little more than we can chew. The last thing I want to experience is more debate about clear majorities and amending formulas; life is too short, and we already have a ‘size of council’ button to press if we want to get a headache. So I’ve been on the lookout for a way we could express our independence and get away with it. And I think I’ve found one—in North Korea.

In its own inimitable style, the government of Kim Jong-un, having presumably grown weary of exploding nuclear warheads and hacking the Sony Pictures Entertainment computer system, recently announced that it is establishing its own time zone, half an hour behind Japanese and South Korean time. It is doing so not for any reason of geography, but to rid itself of a symbol of Japanese control. According to the official Korean Central News Agency, “The wicked Japanese imperialists committed such unpardonable crimes as depriving Korea of even its standard time while mercilessly trampling down its land with 5,000-year-long history and culture and pursuing the unheard- of policy of obliterating the Korean nation.” That bad, eh?

Now I don’t think even Mr. Campbell would express his gripes with our provincial government with that degree of intensity. But if North Korea can set the gold standard for a unilateral declaration of temporal independence at half an hour, then surely the County can follow suit in a more modest way. (In any event, “half an hour” is aready taken: it’s part of the DNA of Newfoundland and Labrador.) So I was thinking we could go for something more like five minutes. Making the County a ‘time zone island’ of five minutes’ difference from the world around us wouldn’t unduly inconvenience anyone.

It might just work. I can see nervous advisers to the Premier, remembering what the late night comics did to Rob Ford, weighing the risk of humiliation and deciding it wasn’t worth bringing the County to heel over 300 seconds. So we would be punching back quite a bit above our weight class.

A give or take of five minutes would also enhance the County’s brand (how I hate that word). It would be saying to the world “Here in the County, we’re not slaves to the clock. If you want to take five minutes to chat to a friend in the grocery store checkout lineup instead of helping the clerk ring your purchases through, just go ahead and do so. The people lining up behind you are not sighing and checking their grocery carts nervously because they are impatient: they’re just wishing they could be part of the conversation. That’s the County lifestyle.”

But should County Time be five minutes backwards or five minutes forwards? I’d vote for backwards. Going backwards would say to our provincial taskmasters “Hey, we know you’d really like to have a do-over on some of your decisions, which is why we created County Time. It’s an oasis of sober second thought, where all is forgiven if you change your mind.” Going backwards would be a tip of the hat to our forerunners, who took the time to reflect on decisions and had slogans to back it up, like “measure twice, cut once.” It would say we believe in the tried and true, not the trendy. To reach way back into history for an example, it would say that the songs of the Beatles (except for Octopus’s Garden) have more lasting value than the songs of Kanye West. Or at least, so I assume based on my consumption of the former and my ignorance of the latter.

If I’m wrong and we should have instead chosen five minutes ahead, we can always claim to be 23 hours and 55 minutes ahead and on to the next calendar day. That way, we may operate with some foreknowlege and start making book on the outcome of Blue Jays’ games. So we have our bases covered.

Thank you, North Korea, for your leadership by example. Thank you, Steve Campbell, for challenging us to think of alternatives to separation. And thank you, dear reader, for taking five minutes to read this column. It may have been a waste of your time, but what’s five minutes to a County resident?

dsimmonds@wellingtontimes.ca