Most of British Columbia springs forward this weekend — more than four years after the provincial government passed legislation to set the stage for a shift to permanent daylight time.
Daylight time, which moves the clocks forward an hour, begins on March 10 in most of B.C. and lasts until Nov. 3, when the clocks fall back an hour.
B.C.’s Peace Region and the Kootenay town of Creston have never changed clocks for daylight time. B.C.’s East Kootenay is currently aligned with the time in Alberta.
In October 2019, B.C. passed legislation to make daylight time permanent. However, Premier David Eby, like his predecessor John Horgan, has said the change will only be enacted once Washington state, Oregon and California also make the move, to ensure B.C.’s economy is aligned with its U.S. neighbours.
Legislators in Washington state, frustrated by the lack of action from U.S. Congress when it comes to seasonal time changes, are looking to take matters into their own hands, while one Yukon minister is welcoming British Columbians to join them in a switch to permanent daylight time.
B.C. is once again changing its clocks this weekend, despite years of promises that the province would eventually end time changes and stick with daylight time. CBC’s Maurice Katz went out and asked people in Vancouver what they think about daylight savings time.
In March 2022, the U.S. Senate passed legislation that would have made daylight time permanent starting in 2023.
But Congress could not come to agreement and the bill was never voted on in the House of Representatives.
A group of 12 bipartisan U.S. senators said Friday they are making a new legislative effort to make daylight time permanent and end the twice-annual changing of clocks.
Senators led by Democrat Ed Markey and Republican Marco Rubio reintroduced legislation, just ahead of the resumption of daylight time at 2 a.m. on Sunday. A companion measure was again introduced in the House by Representative Vern Buchanan.
“The antiquated biannual ritual of toggling between times isn’t just an inconvenience — it also has very real impacts on our economy, our energy consumption, and our health,” Markey said.
Washington state looks at permanent standard time
A lack of movement at the federal level has some U.S. state legislators looking to end time changes by adopting permanent Pacific standard time.
Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed legislation in 2019 to switch to daylight time on a permanent basis, but such a move needs approval from U.S. Congress.
“We waited and waited and waited,” Washington state Senator Mike Padden told CBC News.
Padden is sponsoring a bill to have the state adopt permanent standard time.
He says rather than waiting for approval from Congress to shift to permanent daylight time, states can unilaterally decide to stay on standard time.
“If we were to go to year-round standard time … we could do that on our own,” he said.
“We do not need the permission of the federal government to do that.”
Yukon minister sends ‘condolences’
While B.C. is watching what happens south of the border, Yukon didn’t wait for its neighbours to stop observing a time change. In 2020, Yukon moved to permanent daylight time after the majority of residents who responded to a government survey voted in favour of the change.
“We were hopeful that B.C. would come with us and it didn’t happen,” said Yukon Tourism Minister John Streicker.
Streicker said permanent daylight time comes with minor inconveniences, such as being extra careful when booking flights. But he said he’s heard from people who think such annoyances don’t compare with the disruption that comes with changing the clocks twice a year.
“My condolences to the folks of Prince George and in northern B.C.,” he said with a laugh, “because I know ‘spring forward’ is coming this weekend and so it means that people are going to move their clocks ahead and lose an hour, and that’s always kind of disruptive.”
