@canada Residents of #canada, would you be in favour of your province or territory abolishing annual clock changes and moving to a consistent, year round time?
If yes, what would you prefer: year round daylight savings time (an extra hour of sunlight in the evening) or standard time (an extra hour of sunlight in the morning)?
I live in Saskatchewan, so I already don’t change my clocks at all and I can say with certainty that it is better this way! Please stop changing your clocks!
I found out that Saskatchewan is on permanent Daylight time (more evening sun) which is, by most studies, the ‘worse’ option. However, it is still better than changing the clocks and once you stop the flip-flop, it is so much better.
SK doesn’t get many things right, but not observing DST is one of them.
Came here to say the same thing.
When the whole time zone and DST were being introduced it is my understanding that it was “because the cows wouldn’t understand why they were being fed an hour early or later depending on the time of the year.”
Here is to the livestock for saving people from the week of more car accidents and heart attacks!
@FlareHeart if it’s the worse option then I wonder why everywhere keeps going for it (BC and the Yukon too). My guess is that it’s partially for economic reasons. Most people are out and about in the evening, so by allowing for an extra hour of sunlight in the evening you open the window of time when people will engage in economic activities. This could have indirect health benefits through increased employment or something, who knows.
I’m not sure. I know that due to our position and lack of sunlight, most Canadians are deficient in vitamin D, so I supplement for that anyway. But I love not having to change my clocks. One hour’s shift of what little sunlight we get in the winter doesn’t matter IMO. Just stop flip-flopping!
Oh, the horror of changing a clock…
Oh, the horror of poorer mental health, increased car accidents and heart attacks…
Ooo.psychology today , that’s almost science.
Like most psychology studies, they misuse stats to generate a conclusion they already made before the study. Psychology is a joke, epidemiology is a joke, but together the make the Reece’s peanut butter of shit science.
What if all those events were just due to weather changes coincident with fall and spring time changes? Did they look at mean temperatures? Air pressure?
Example, from the link you didn’t read,
“An analysis in the European Journal of Public Health from 2024 showed no increase in suicide in Austria, Switzerland, and Sweden following the start of daylight saving time. However, data vary, and studies show that some subgroups, including patients with substance use disorders, may incur a 6.59 percent increase in suicide risk soon after the springtime change.”
A subgroup of a subgroup may have (that means not significant) an effect. Typical of garbage published around this.
I suggest you people find solutions to real problems in the world.
Heavy use of sarcasm, unironic use of “you people” when replying to a single person, and turning it all into whataboutism.
Bad faith arguments.
Not worth my time.
I’m in BC and I’m glad we’re not doing the changes again. That said, I do wish we stuck with standard time instead, but I’ll get used to it.
@TheFeatureCreature What do you prefer about standard time?
I prefer earlier darkness in the evening.
@TheFeatureCreature that’s fair enough
The fact that clock noon is actually within a half hour of solar noon, and not a whole hour and a bit off.
Kelowna varies from being less than 2 minutes off of solar noon to about 11 minutes off at the most. Now it’s going to be permanently an entire hour-plus off.
Why call it noon if it isn’t actually noon?
I support ending seasonal time changes. There is considerable data showing that these changes cause health issues and more workplace injuries. However, staying on daylight saving time isn’t the right choice. Every jurisdiction that has tried this has been compelled to revert to seasonal adjustments. The best option is Standard Time, as it aligns most closely with solar time, which our bodies naturally follow.
Other than the poorly implemented experiment in the States, who else has reverted? Saskatchewan is (effectively) permanent daylight time, as are Argentina, Malaysia, and Singapore. Possibly there’s a bunch of other countries that I don’t know about as well.
The short list of clear “tried it → reversed it” cases is:
- 🇷🇺 Russia (2011–2014)
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom (1968–1971)
- 🇺🇸 United States (1940s, 1970s experiments)
And the reason is remarkably consistent:
👉 Permanent DST sounds appealing—but winter mornings break it.
Thanks ChatGPT.
Yes. In Alberta, especially in the central/northern region, the time change doesn’t serve any particular purpose. Our daylight hours are very long in the summer and very short in the winter, so changing the specific time the sun rises and sets hardly makes a difference.
Personally I prefer standard time over DST, and I think a lot of people here share that opinion. We probably would have switched over years ago if our government had any shred of competence.
Why is there no discussion on splitting the difference and changing time zones by half an hour? If Newfoundland can survive being half an hour off from its neighbors there shouldn’t be any arguments against it.
@loonmusic this is a good idea. Especially since I can see both sides of the argument here. Standard time is apparently better for our health but having an extra hour in the evening with daylight time could be good for the economy extend the window of time when people go out and do things. It may even prevent crime in the same way that proper street lighting prevents crime. So splitting the difference Newfoundland style seems like a good compromise.
There is no conclusive evidence that street lighting prevents crime. Some study even found an inverse correlation.
@alsimoneau That’s interesting. Intuitively it makes a lot of sense that it would prevent crime, so I never questioned the idea.
Light increses the feeling of safety, but light also creates shadows, where one can hides while seeing their target.
Why not 15 minute time zones? You could leave for work and arrive at work at the same time.
@chimpchomp @canada I fully support year round DST.
Yes. Please keep it at standard time. Keep noon at noon.
In BC we are now on permanent daylight savings. Gives us a winter dark around 4:30 instead of 3:30
Also in BC. We should have gone with permanent Standard time imo.
Why? You want 3;:30 sunrise starting? I prefer the 4:30am start, and daylight in the winter near end of day
Same here. Wish they put it to referendum, no idea why they went with daylight savings.
Why would you want sunrise at 330 in the summer?
Why not? Wake up naturally with no alarm clock at like 6am ready to take on the day and feeling refreshed. Sunlight pouring through the windows as you drink your coffee and get showered.
I would rather have a ton of sunlight in the morning then late in the evening.
We get that already with 4:30am sun starting, no need for 3:30am
You can do the same with 430am sunlight though.
Instead of changing how the sun works maybe change how humans work. Instead of 9 to 5, how about 8 to 4 ?
I’m all for that.
Most people won’t even notice if they leave work at 5pm, will still be dark no matter what so why not have an extra hour of light in the morning instead? I much prefer standard.
In winter it is dark here in the morning too. Rainforest oveecaat cloud cover means its pretty bleak
Alberta here. Fuck yes! The premise of DST is stupid. Changing twice a year is more stupider.
Abolish it forever and move to standard time.
Also Alberta, also yes.
Danielle Smith would be less able to break things while working on it, too.
Fully support ditching the switch.
Get rid of time change. Have a referemdum for Standard or Daylight, then stick to it.
Apparently I’m the only person in the country who doesn’t find the seasonal time changing to be problematic.
I like having the extra sunshine hours in the summer evenings, and having sunrise come a bit sooner in the winter. And I’ve never personally experienced any dramatically negative effects on the days when the time changes.
You are lucky then. I have trouble sleeping even on good days. Losing 1 hour of sleep that I already have trouble getting is majorly problematic for me.
Same. I usually don’t notice until I get in the car and the clock is an hour off.
I am sure the people with the increased amount of car accidents and heart attacks care.
Motorists are more likely to die in collisions, but cyclists and pedestrians are not; and by a nearly equal amount. So maybe take active or public transit for a week or two following the time change. It will help with reducing heart attacks too.
https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/changing-the-clocks-helps-pedestrians-but-hurts-motorists
I live in Saskatchewan so I don’t worry about this time change BS.
I don’t care which. Pick one and stop changing the clocks.
Oooo…it’s so complex!! There’s little buttons and the clock only adjust in one direction…oooo…this is our Iranian War!
There is a week every year (maybe 2 don’t remember the study too well) that there is an increase of car accidents and heart attacks when the clocks fall back (or spring forward again don’t remember the study too well). I am glad I live in Saskatchewan where our livestock wouldn’t understand why they are being fed at different times!
As I understand it, when the time zones and time changing was being developed Saskatchewan said no time change “because the cows wouldn’t understand why they were being fed at different times.” So all I can say is here to the livestock!
But seriously different parts of the world and parts of Canada can do without time changes, I understand why Canada likes time zones but time changes are silly. We should really all just follow Europe, I think they all follow one time zone, and all get into GMT and adjust our lives to that. If all the world was one time zone could you imagine how much easier it would be to schedule meetings and the such. Yes I understand I it would be confusing why 9 to 5 would be different, 15:00 to 23:00 (in Saskatchewan). As I understand it China has one time zone as well, of course there are plenty of small counties that only fall into one time zone.
@Reannlegge yeah I’ve heard about how there is an increase in heart attacks and car accidents after you set the clocks forward an hour. But apparently there is actually a decrease in heart attacks and car accidents when you set the clocks forward an hour, so it cancels out in the end. Not that that’s a good reason to stick with the time change though! At the very least we’ve got to make sure we don’t confuse the cows
Absolutely. But they need to do it right. Eby’s “permanent” change to Daylight Savings Time will most likely get rescinded in a year or two just like it has everywhere else it has been tried because it doesn’t work. That hour on winter mornings is needed far, far more than the hour in the evening in the summer. He would have been much better to have not changed the time on March 8th and just left it alone.
In BC, we’ve switched to permanent PDT. But why are we still calling it pacific time? It’s obviously Mountain Time.
It’s always “Pacific”, regardless if it is ST or DST.
The real fuckery is that the referendum gave us only two choices, not three:
- Stay on flip-flopping time changes.
- Go to permanent DST.
There was no option for permanent Standard Time, so everyone chose the least-worst option instead of the much better one that wasn’t even provided.
For west coast permanent daylight is better. We have darkness around 3:30 pm in winter, so now it will be 4:30 which is much better driving hone from work with some daylight. And with daylight time in summer its getting light out around 4:30-4:45am, if we went back to standard time that would be 3:30-3:45am. I don’t enjoy sunshine that early
No I prefer gmt-7 to gmt-8. I just think year-round gmt-7 should be called “mountain time.”
