Brace yourselves, Victoria, it’s time to spring forward for this year’s Daylight Saving time change!
On Sunday, March 10th, clocks will move one hour forward at 2 a.m., meaning you’ll start your week off a little sleepier than usual.
In honour of the one hour sleep we’re about to lose, we’ve assembled a list of facts about Canada’s century-old chase for extra daylight.
1. 111 years of tradition
The first community in Canada to adopt Daylight Saving is Thunder Bay, Ontario, who turned their clocks forward back in 1908.
It didn’t take long for other provinces to catch on, with most adopting the practice by 1918.
2. Not all British Columbians participate
11 communities in BC prefer to keep things simple, and have opted out of the country’s Daylight Saving time change.
The communities, which can be found in eastern and south-eastern BC, never change their clocks, meaning they use Mountain Time (the same as Calgary and Edmonton) in the winter, and Victoria’s Pacific Standard Time in the summer.
The communities include Chetwynd, Dawson Creek, Hudson’s Hope, Fort St. John, Taylor, Tumbler Ridge, Branbrook, Fernie, Sparwood, Golden, and Invermere.
3. Most of Saskatchewan will be sleeping in
While most BC communities use Daylight Saving, with a few that do not, Saskatchewan is the opposite.
The majority of the central province does not practice Daylight Saving, with only a few that do change their clocks. These rare communities include Lloydminster, Denare Beach, and Creighton.
4. Keeping time with neighbours
Before 2006, Daylight Saving would occur on the first Sunday of April and last Sunday of October.
When the United states changed their schedule to mid-March and early November, Canada followed suit, partly to maintain convenient business interactions with our southern neighbours.
5. BC mayors voted to end Daylight Saving last year
In September 2018, municipal leaders in BC held a vote on whether or not to end Daylight Saving.
The resolution was ultimately shot down, with Premier Horgan saying, “we have no plans to change Daylight Saving Time at this point,” at a conference last year.
“Certainly our trading partners on the west coast, Washington, Oregon, and California, have no interest in changing the time,” he said. “That was made clear to me in my conversations with [Washington State] Governor [Jay] Inslee. He didn’t even know what I was talking about and wondered why it would be an issue.”
