Daylight saving time will soon be here. On Sunday, March 8, the clocks will again “spring forward” an hour – but this may be the very last time we do so!
Starting on Sunday, we will have more light in the evenings again, and darker mornings.
Most of Canada will make the switch, a twice-annual change that has been with us for more than 100 years in one form or another.
And for just as long, people have complained about it. The sudden loss of an hour of evening daylight in the fall is particularly annoying.
The biggest reason for the original switch was an attempt to save coal during the First World War. But there’s very little evidence that the switch to more hours of evening daylight saves energy – while there is a fair bit of evidence that it discombobulates people.
Studies have found higher rates of medical incidents like heart attacks, not to mention car crashes, in the days and weeks after one of the twice-yearly time changes. It turns out that screwing up people’s sleep cycles – our bodies can be forced to wake up earlier thanks to alarm clocks, but they don’t deal with it well – is hard on bodies and minds.
So why has it persisted for so long?
Well, some governments have switched. Parts of B.C., up in the Peace River area, don’t make the change, and neither do Yukon or Saskatchewan.
B.C. proposed ditching the system way back in 2019, when legislation was put in place to allow us to stay on daylight saving time year-round. But for seven years, we waited for Washington State, Oregon, and California to do the same – something that once seemed imminent.
Since 2019, American efforts at reform have bogged down, and so we’ve been stuck still changing the clocks twice a year.
This year – just as this editorial was going to press – word came down that the province was moving ahead with a permanent change to daylight saving. At last!
Yes, we’ll have to negotiate opening times at the border crossings that don’t run 24 hours a day. Local Mariners and Seahawks fans will have to adjust their PVRs. There will be some minor adjustments to be made for airlines – but they already deal with multiple time zones, including Newfoundland’s half hour difference. Somehow, they’ll manage dealing with another jurisdiction that skips the time change entirely.
For all the minor difficulties, the simple relief of never losing an hour from a spring weekend once a year will be worth it.
This permanent switch will prevent traffic collisions, save some money for our health system, and let us sleep in properly on our spring Sunday mornings every year after this one. It’s a good call.