Canada is divided into six time zones. Most areas of the country's provinces and territories operate on standard time from the first Sunday in November to the second Sunday in March and daylight saving time the rest of the year. The division between time zones are based on proposals by Scottish Canadian railway engineer Sandford Fleming, who pioneered the use of the 24-hour clock, the world's time zone system, and a standard prime meridian. Official time The National Research Council (NRC) maintains Canada's official time through the use of atomic clocks. The official time is specified in legislation passed by the individual provinces. In Quebec it is based on coordinated universal time. The other provinces use mean solar time. The NRC provides both coordinated universal time and mean solar time in its signals. It makes time servers available for direct synchronization with computers. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has aired a daily time signal, the National Research Council Time Signal, since November 5, 1939. Time notation The Government of Canada recommends use of the 24-hour clock (e.g. ), which is widely used in contexts such as transportation schedules, parking meters, and data transmission. Speakers of Canadian French predominantly use this system, but most Canadian English speakers use the 12-hour clock in everyday speech (e.g. ), even when reading from a 24-hour display, similar to the use of the 24-hour clock in the United Kingdom. Zones Pacific Time Zone Pacific Standard Time (PST) GMT−08:00 and Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) GMT−07:00: British Columbia (most of the province) Mountain Time Zone Mountain Standard Time (MST) GMT−07:00 and Mountain Daylight Time (MDT) GMT−06:00: Alberta British Columbia, southeastern Columbia-Shuswap Regional District east of the Selkirk Mountains Regional District of East Kootenay Regional District of Central Kootenay east of the Kootenay River and some parts east of Kootenay Lake that are south of and including Riondel (but not Creston, which observes MST year-round, and Kootenay Bay) Northwest Territories, except for Tungsten (see above), two fishing lodges in the southeast and a mine site in the southwest Nunavut () west of 102° West, and all communities in the Kitikmeot Region Saskatchewan () Lloydminster and surrounding area (the municipal government chose to unify the entire city with Alberta's time zone) Mountain Standard Time (MST) GMT−07:00 year-round: Yukon British Columbia, northeastern Northern Rockies Regional Municipality most of Peace River Regional District (except Fort Ware), including Dawson Creek British Columbia, southeastern