Ontario will continue time changes after B.C. daylight saving decision

[spaminator]

Ontario will continue time changes after B.C. daylight saving decision
Ontario passed legislation in 2020 to end the practice, but first needs Quebec and New York to adopt same time throughout year

Author of the article:Spiro Papuckoski
Published Mar 03, 2026 • Last updated 20 hours ago • 3 minute read

Clocks will shift one hour ahead in most of Ontario this weekend.
Clocks will shift one hour ahead in most of Ontario this weekend. Photo by Rawf8 / iStock /Getty Images
Most Ontario residents will continue to change their clocks twice a year despite British Columbia formally ending the time shifts.


B.C. Premier David Eby announced Monday that the province is adopting daylight saving time by shifting its clocks one hour ahead permanently this weekend to take advantage of later daylight.


“Every parent knows that changing clocks twice a year causes a significant amount of chaos on already busy lives. British Columbians have been clear that seasonal time changes do not work for them,” Eby said in a statement adopting the change.

“This decision isn’t just about clocks. It’s about making life easier for families, reducing disruptions for businesses and supporting a stable, thriving economy.”

Eby hopes that Pacific Time Zone states Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada will also make the change permanent.


“I am hopeful that our American neighbours will soon join us in ending disruptive time changes,” he said.

This year, daylight saving time is set to kick in Sunday when clocks shift from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. It will end on Nov. 1, when the time is rolled back an hour at 2 a.m.

The rest of the country will continue to shift an hour twice a year, except for Yukon, Saskatchewan and some parts of Ontario and Quebec.

Ontario on board with permanent change
Premier Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservative government are ready and willing to make daylight saving time a reality throughout the year for the province’s residents.

But that won’t happen until two other jurisdictions follow suit.

“In 2020, the Ontario Legislature passed Bill 214 that states Ontario will do away with daylight savings time if New York and Quebec do the same. That remains our position,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement Tuesday.


That law has yet to come into force as the province waits for Quebec and New York to officially adopt daylight saving time year round.

time change graphic
Petition gathering signatures
Following news of B.C. move to the permanent change, an online petition urging the federal government to end the practice has reached 90,000 signatures.

The petition, started by Brampton resident Irene Shone, argues that shifting clocks twice a year poses serious health and safety concerns.

“Changing clocks twice a year is hazardous to your health,” the appeal says. “There are many studies showing that changing the clock and staying on Daylight Saving Time negatively impacts our circadian rhythm, causes increases in strokes and heart attacks, impacts people with depression and seasonal affective disorder and causes more car accidents.”



Shone, who began the drive to end the time changes seven years ago, advocated for not moving an hour forward to take advantage of extra evening light.

“I ask the Canadian Government to finally stop Daylight Saving Time and enact Permanent Standard Time,” the petition says. “Even if one person is saved from having a stroke or heart attack or is saved from a car accident, it’s worth it. Support the health and safety of Canadians and set an example for the rest of the world.”

Trump vowed end to time change
U.S. President Donald Trump weighed in on the debate over time changes following his election to a second term in the Oval Office.

“The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform in December 2024. “Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.”

In 2022, the U.S. Senate advanced a plan to make daylight saving time permanent.

http://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113647254141876924

Sign the Petition

Stop Daylight Saving Time in Canada

change.org

Time Amendment Act, 2020

Bill 214 from Parliament 42 Session 1 of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario: Time Amendment Act, 2020.

ola.org

http://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026AG0013-000209

Ontario will continue time changes after B.C. daylight saving decision

Most Ontario residents will continue to change their clocks twice a year despite British Columbia formally ending the time shifts. Read more

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Ontario will continue time changes after B.C. daylight saving decision
Ontario passed legislation in 2020 to end the practice, but first needs Quebec and New York to adopt same time throughout year

Author of the article:Spiro Papuckoski
Published Mar 03, 2026 • Last updated 20 hours ago • 3 minute read

Clocks will shift one hour ahead in most of Ontario this weekend.
Clocks will shift one hour ahead in most of Ontario this weekend. Photo by Rawf8 / iStock /Getty Images
Most Ontario residents will continue to change their clocks twice a year despite British Columbia formally ending the time shifts.


B.C. Premier David Eby announced Monday that the province is adopting daylight saving time by shifting its clocks one hour ahead permanently this weekend to take advantage of later daylight.


“Every parent knows that changing clocks twice a year causes a significant amount of chaos on already busy lives. British Columbians have been clear that seasonal time changes do not work for them,” Eby said in a statement adopting the change.

“This decision isn’t just about clocks. It’s about making life easier for families, reducing disruptions for businesses and supporting a stable, thriving economy.”

Eby hopes that Pacific Time Zone states Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada will also make the change permanent.


“I am hopeful that our American neighbours will soon join us in ending disruptive time changes,” he said.

This year, daylight saving time is set to kick in Sunday when clocks shift from 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. It will end on Nov. 1, when the time is rolled back an hour at 2 a.m.

The rest of the country will continue to shift an hour twice a year, except for Yukon, Saskatchewan and some parts of Ontario and Quebec.

Ontario on board with permanent change
Premier Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservative government are ready and willing to make daylight saving time a reality throughout the year for the province’s residents.

But that won’t happen until two other jurisdictions follow suit.

“In 2020, the Ontario Legislature passed Bill 214 that states Ontario will do away with daylight savings time if New York and Quebec do the same. That remains our position,” a spokesperson said in an emailed statement Tuesday.


That law has yet to come into force as the province waits for Quebec and New York to officially adopt daylight saving time year round.

time change graphic
Petition gathering signatures
Following news of B.C. move to the permanent change, an online petition urging the federal government to end the practice has reached 90,000 signatures.

The petition, started by Brampton resident Irene Shone, argues that shifting clocks twice a year poses serious health and safety concerns.

“Changing clocks twice a year is hazardous to your health,” the appeal says. “There are many studies showing that changing the clock and staying on Daylight Saving Time negatively impacts our circadian rhythm, causes increases in strokes and heart attacks, impacts people with depression and seasonal affective disorder and causes more car accidents.”



Shone, who began the drive to end the time changes seven years ago, advocated for not moving an hour forward to take advantage of extra evening light.

“I ask the Canadian Government to finally stop Daylight Saving Time and enact Permanent Standard Time,” the petition says. “Even if one person is saved from having a stroke or heart attack or is saved from a car accident, it’s worth it. Support the health and safety of Canadians and set an example for the rest of the world.”

Trump vowed end to time change
U.S. President Donald Trump weighed in on the debate over time changes following his election to a second term in the Oval Office.

“The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform in December 2024. “Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.”

In 2022, the U.S. Senate advanced a plan to make daylight saving time permanent.
View attachment 33516

http://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/113647254141876924

Sign the Petition

Stop Daylight Saving Time in Canada

change.org

Time Amendment Act, 2020

Bill 214 from Parliament 42 Session 1 of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario: Time Amendment Act, 2020.

ola.org

http://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026AG0013-000209

Ontario will continue time changes after B.C. daylight saving decision

Most Ontario residents will continue to change their clocks twice a year despite British Columbia formally ending the time shifts. Read more

torontosun.com

i hope one day ontario will be on permanent eastern daylight time.

 

[TheShadow]

Ontario needs to take the reins and just move forward and not wait for Quebec or New York State.

 

[petros]

Ontario needs to take the reins and just move forward and not wait for Quebec or New York State.

Montana and SK are different time zones. It impacts nothing.

 

[Taxslave2]

Unfortunatly for BD, Eby, being an idiot chose DSL to stick us with. Except the parts of BC on Mountain time. Aside from being the unhealthy choice, no groups were asked for opinions. So, Eby being a city slicker decided that daylight in the evening for a few months is more important than daylight in the morning when people are moving about. Schools will now start in the dark for several months. On the bright? side, construction workers will now have 9-5 jobs.

 

[petros]

Unfortunatly for BD, Eby, being an idiot chose DSL to stick us with. Except the parts of BC on Mountain time. Aside from being the unhealthy choice, no groups were asked for opinions. So, Eby being a city slicker decided that daylight in the evening for a few months is more important than daylight in the morning when people are moving about. Schools will now start in the dark for several months. On the bright? side, construction workers will now have 9-5 jobs.

DS is the natural time.

 

[Ron in Regina]

Montana and SK are different time zones. It impacts nothing.

Montana & North Dakota are in different time zones, and both are below Saskatchewan.

This impacts nothing if you’re not interacting with either of them.
Are we in the same time zone as Montana or North Dakota this half of the year? Are we in the same time zone as Alberta or Manitoba this half of the year? Etc…& it just branches out further. Are we an hour or two out from BC or Ontario this half of the year? Are we an hour or two out from Indiana or Oregon this half of the year?

 

[petros]

Montana & North Dakota are in different time zones, and both are below Saskatchewan.
View attachment 33553
This impacts nothing if you’re not interacting with either of them.
View attachment 33554Are we in the same time zone as Montana or North Dakota this half of the year? Are we in the same time zone as Alberta or Manitoba this half of the year? Etc…& it just branches out further. Are we an hour or two out from BC or Ontario this half of the year? Are we an hour or two out from Indiana or Oregon this half of the year?

Gonna move the sun?

 

[Ron in Regina]

Gonna move the sun?

Nah, it’s just a pain in the ass, & something we have to adapt to twice a year even though Saskatchewan doesn’t participate in the asinine daylight savings thing. It’s good though for reminding me when to change the batteries in my smoke detectors.

 

[spaminator]

Daylight Saving Time: History, health impacts and debate
Author of the article:Spiro Papuckoski
Published Mar 06, 2026 • Last updated 21 hours ago • 4 minute read

Most Canadians will be moving their clocks one hour forward this weekend.
Most Canadians will be moving their clocks one hour forward this weekend. Photo by Daniel Tamas Mehes / iStock /Getty Images
Most Canadians will be springing their clocks forward one hour this weekend.


For some, that loss of 60 minutes will become permanent.


British Columbia announced earlier this week that the province is officially ending the twice-yearly time change in favour of an extra hour of evening sunlight.

That trade-off means an extended period of darkness in the morning.

Premier David Eby said the change is to improve people’s overall health and reduce disruptions for families.

But before considering the health impacts of Daylight Saving Time, we take a look at how setting the clocks came about.

History of time change
The history of Daylight Saving Time can trace its roots to New Zealand when entomologist George Hudson suggested in 1895 the idea of a two-hour time shift so that he could have more hours of evening sunlight in the summer.


Nothing came of that idea until the 1900s.

The first jurisdiction to enact the time change actually happened in Ontario.

In May 1908, Fort William and Port Arthur — which later merged to become Thunder Bay — were the first municipalities to adjust the time one hour ahead to match the eastern time zone.

“By 1910, they had both adopted eastern time, which was considered to be a permanent move to daylight saving time,” Christina Wakefield, a City of Thunder Bay Archives worker, told the Fort Frances Times two years ago.

The change was needed in the grain shipping industry to coordinate workers across time zones.

“Because the port workers in Thunder Bay were in one time zone and workers coming in on a ship or train were in the Toronto time zone, they ended up having essentially two hours of lunch where nobody was doing any work,” Wakefield said.


A few years later, in 1915, Germany began thinking of ideas to conserve energy while the First World War was raging across Europe.

The German government decided to have more daylight hours beginning in the spring in an effort to conserve scarce resources like fossil fuels.

In Canada, the federal government regulated the hour shifts in 1918 to increase production during the war, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia.

When the Second World War broke out, the Canadian government implemented Daylight Saving Time all year round.

Since 1987, provincial, territorial and municipal governments in Canada have regulated official time zones.

Health impacts
There has been lots of research and discussion over the health impacts of moving the clocks forward in the spring and back an hour in the fall.


According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), there are serious health concerns associated with losing and gaining an hour of sleep.

“An abundance of accumulated evidence indicates that the acute transition from standard time to Daylight Saving Time incurs significant public health and safety risks,” the group wrote in a position paper in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine in 2020.

“It is, therefore, the position of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine that these seasonal time changes should be abolished in favour of a fixed, national, year-round Standard Time.”

One study found making Standard Time permanent would lead to 2.6 million fewer people with obesity

In 2018, a paper in the Internal and Emergency Medicine journal noted a nearly one-third increase (29%) in heart attacks following the springtime hour switch.


Not only does time changes mess with people’s health, it also affect the circadian rhythms in humans when the body is required to wake up an hour earlier.

“We’re changing the clocks but we’re not changing the signals our body aligns to,” Dr. Karin Johnson, professor of neurology at the University of Massachusetts Chan School of Medicine-Baystate, told Time magazine.

Present day debate
There is debate on whether Standard Time stays uninterrupted, Daylight Saving Time becomes permanent, or whether the biannual time shifts continue.

A Calgary researcher said keeping Standard Time would be best as the sun is at its highest point during the noon hour.

“We have a little structure in our brain that keeps track of time — keeps track of daylight in our environment — and organizes all the rhythms in our body,” Dr. Michael Antle, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Calgary, told the Calgary Herald.


“The big one is sleep-wake, and that’s the one we’re going to mess with this weekend when we change our clocks. But everything else that we do, all the hormones in your body, have a circadian rhythm … There’s a clock in all of our organs, so in our heart, our liver, our digestive tract.”

He said making Daylight Saving Time permanent would be the last option for human health, arguing that people would be waking up to darkness for months on end.

In addition, seasonal depression would get worse and people will be less productive, he said.

“This is why this one time change affects people so much more than just having a bad night’s sleep,” Antle said. “You have a bad night’s sleep tonight, you’e gonna go to bed early tonight or you might sleep in tomorrow. You’ll make up for that one hour and you’ll feel better.

“But it’ not just losing that one hour — and that’s an abrupt change, it’s hard — it’s that every morning for 27 days, you’re going to be forced out of bed earlier than your brain and your body wants.”

The Health Impact of Making Daylight Saving Time Permanent

The Canadian province of British Columba is making the switch to permanent Daylight Saving Time.

time.com

Daylight saving time, circadian rhythms, and cardiovascular health - Internal and Emergency Medicine

Very recently, the European Parliament, called to decide on possible abolition of the Daylight Saving Time (DST), approved a resolution calling the scientific community to conduct a more in-depth evaluation. The question is based on disruption of body’s circadian rhythms. We review here the...

link.springer.com

Daylight saving time: an American Academy of Sleep Medicine position statement - Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine

The last several years have seen intense debate about the issue of transitioning between standard and daylight saving time. In the United States, the annual advance to daylight saving time in spring, and fall back to standard time in autumn, is required by law (although some exceptions are...

link.springer.com

http://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/daylight-saving-time-in-canada

The History of Daylight Saving Time | University Canada West

The end of Daylight Saving Time marks an additional hour of sleep for many Canadians. While turning the clocks forward and back is a concept that dates back centuries, what is the history of Daylight Saving Time and how did this practice begin?

ucanwest.ca

Time change has Thunder Bay origin

Many of us are still struggling to adjust to turning clocks ahead one hour to switch to daylight time on Sunday, and we can thank Thunder Bay for this. It all began in 1908 when Fort William and Port Arthur became the first places in the world to institute a […]

fftimes.com

http://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2026AG0013-000209

Daylight Saving Time: History, health impacts and debate

Most Canadians will be springing their clocks forward one hour this weekend. For some, that loss of 60 minutes will be permanent. Read more.

torontosun.com

 

[Taxslave2]

Idon't know qhy it is so hard for city people to grasp the idea of getting up an hour earlier instead of changing clocks. Now that BC is officially(until the next pronouncement from above) on DST, construction work is now a 9-5 job for a good portion of the year. Or, we could run lots of diesel generators and start at a normal time. Say 05:00 DST.