Intalling tzdata puts zoneinfo in /usr/local/share as opposed to /usr/share. Subsequently programs like zic or zdump won't work unless the full path is specified. There was an existing post regarding this from 2011. It looks like the solution was to create symlinks in the /usr/share folder as they appear to be there.
However zic -l Canada/Eastern reports that the link can't be created unless I call it as zic -d /etc -l /usr/local/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Eastern . If I omit the -d arg, it seems to succeed but there is no resulting localtime in /etc.
zdump also doesn't work without the full path. In both cases, using /usr/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Eastern works.
We have a controller that we will be using to replace existing systems and it's requested that due to scripts or whatever they function the same.