Time to ‘fall back’ one hour tonight
Province wanted to lead the charge for permanent Daylight Time in Canada
How the pandemic ruined B.C.'s plans to lead the charge for permanent daylight saving time in Canada,
Tara Holmes watched the sunset from her home in snowblanketed Kamloops, B.C., at 5:40 p.m., telling herself: Next year is the year.
It’s in Kamloops that the movement to end clock changes in B.C. began, and it’s easy to see why.
Next week, the sun will be down by 4:40 p.m. Then earlier. And this year, another shadow looms over the short days and cold temperatures: The need to isolate from friends and neighbours as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Talk about winter blues. For five years, Holmes has been at the forefront of an initiative to nix the clock changes in B.C. — a move she believes will get the ball rolling for all Canadian provinces.
Yukon has already made the change and will not be turning back clocks this November.
Meanwhile, a private member’s bill urging Ontario to move permanently to daylight saving time passed second reading in Queen’s Park this month. The move would be dependent on Quebec and New York state doing the same.
“I’m sure I’m not the only one who is left feeling groggy and off-put in the days following (time changes),” said Ontario Progressive Conservative MPP Jeremy Roberts on his website, explaining his decision bring the bill.
“It’s a hassle to have to change over all of your clocks.”
Introduced in Europe during the First World War in an effort to conserve energy and extend working hours, daylight saving time, or at least the changing of clocks back and forth into daylight saving time, is now widely condemned by health and safety experts, who say it amounts to forcing an entire population into a one-hour jet lag twice a year.
Advocates came tantalizingly close to getting rid of the clock changes this year. The B.C. government passed legislation last fall that would allow it to stop the clock changes at any time, and implement permanent Daylight Time — the time used in the summer. A record-breaking public survey found 93 per cent of 200,000 British Columbian respondents were in favour. All the province had to do was pull the trigger.
But “this year” is 2020, so plans changed.
B.C. Premier John Horgan told reporters in September that, because of the pandemic, making changes to daylight savings had fallen as a priority for the government.
It’s not just the province’s moves that matter. Horgan has said since 2019 that he wanted the province to move forward with implementing permanent Daylight Time in lockstep with its U.S. neighbours on the south coast. Washington, Oregon and California have passed state legislation similar to that in
B.C., but they need approval from the U.S. federal government before they can officially make the change.
That wasn’t happening this year.
Still, Holmes questions whether the timing — implementing a popular change that could lift people’s spirits heading into the winter — could have been perfect for B.C. to make the change anyways.
“We have learned that this is an unnecessary tradition that is no longer valid,” she said. “The fact that the border is closed, that we’re separate from the United States at the moment, makes it the ideal time to stop the time change.”
The research Holmes found most persuasive has been that showing car accidents regularly increase for up to three weeks following the fall back — as drivers abruptly adjust to having less light to drive by in the evenings.
“When you think of those distracted drivers, I get really scared for what could happen,” she said. “This could be a conduit for saving lives, stopping the time change overall.”