Last spring forward for B.C. as it moves to permanent daylight time

VICTORIA — British Columbia’s southern population centres will be facing winter sunrises around 9 a.m. — and around 9:30 a.m. in the north — after the decision to adopt year-round daylight time, springing forward by one hour this Sunday for the last time.

Premier David Eby said Monday the decision is about making life easier for families, reducing disruptions for businesses and supporting a stable, thriving economy.

“British Columbians have been clear that seasonal time changes do not work for them,” Eby said.

He announced the change inside the legislature’s Hall of Honour, surrounded by about 40 local elementary schoolchildren, and he addressed them first.

“When we change our clocks twice a year, it creates all kinds of problems,” he told them. “Kids get up at the same time, even though the clocks changed. Dogs get up at the same time, even though the clocks changed. Parents lose sleep. Kids lose sleep, and even people without kids, they’re losing an hour of sleep.”

He said B.C. had “waited and waited and waited” for U.S. states to do away with the time changes.

“But guess what?” he said. “Today I’m here to announce that we are done waiting. British Columbia is going to change our clocks just one more time, and then never again.”

This was the cue for children to starting dancing around Eby and Attorney General Niki Sharma to the sounds of Daft Punk’s “One More Time,” while waving clocks made out of cardboard.

B.C.’s transition to the Pacific time zone — as opposed to the current Pacific standard and Pacific daylight zones — will put it in the same time zone as the Yukon.

It will match Alberta from November to March, while aligning with California, Washington and Oregon from March to November. However, it will be an hour ahead of those states in other months.

The change means that on the shortest day of the year, Dec. 21, the sun will not rise in Victoria until 9:03 a.m. In Prince George, the winter solstice sunrise will be at 9:28 a.m.

Wendy Hall, professor emeritus of nursing at the University of British Columbia, said she does not understand why government is making the change.

“I think the best I could say about that, is that it might offer a little bit more time for evening exercise and people to shop more,” said Hall, whose research has focused on children’s sleep.

She said the lack of morning light is going to be difficult for northern parts of the province, and warned of negative effects for children.

“One is, in the counties in the U.S. where they went on permanent daylight saving, they had an increase in the number of student fatalities in the morning, because they were waiting at bus stops or walking to school in the dark, and they were more likely to be hit by a car,” she said.

Hall also predicted that the change would cause problems for the sleeping patterns of children.

In 2019, she wrote to then-premier John Horgan, when his government pushed plans to make daylight time permanent, telling him that the body clock known as the circadian rhythm is mostly set by light and darkness.

“Switching to (daylight time) creates a significant misalignment with the sun clock,” she wrote. “When there is misalignment between the body clock and social clock there are effects on health.”

Hall said chronic sleep loss among adolescents caused by misaligned body and social clocks, has been linked to problems with attention, behaviour, learning and increased risk of depression and self-harm.

“Does government want to introduce a permanent time change that contributes to those problems and that adds to the already excessive costs in provincial revenue devoted to health?” Hall asked.

Eby said people and businesses will have eight months to prepare for the elimination of the next time change, which had been set for Nov. 1.

He said he was hopeful B.C.’s American neighbours would eventually join the province in ending the disruptive time changes.

Sharma said they’ve heard from an overwhelming majority of people in B.C. who want to end the back-and-forth of seasonal time changes.

“This shift offers more stability, supports public well-being and reduces twice-yearly, unnecessary disruptions to the routines of parents, shift workers, small businesses, pet owners and so many more,” Sharma said.

She said she looks forward to enjoying an extra hour of sunlight after work and school for many winters to come.

Hall, however, questioned the government’s methodology in pushing forward with the change.

The government release announcing the change cites a government-commissioned survey showing 93 per cent support among the 223,000 people who participated it. But Hall said the government never offered the option of staying on permanent standard time.

The pending change fulfils a promise made in 2019, when Eby, then attorney general, tabled legislation to make daylight time permanent.

But B.C. conditioned that change on Washington state, Oregon and California also making the switch, which has not happened because the relevant legislation remains in Congressional limbo.

“The situation on the ground has changed since 2019,” Eby said, when asked about government’s decision to move ahead without waiting on the U.S. states.

“We are able to be a little bit more selfish in our decisions for what is best for British Columbians. It’s clear that British Columbians know what is best for them. They want to have that extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day.”

Parts of the business community, however, are criticizing the change.

Bridgitte Anderson, president and CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, said government’s “unilateral change” marks an “unwelcome distraction that will make it more difficult to attract and retain businesses” in British Columbia.

Werner Antweiler, associate professor at UBC’s Sauder School of Business, said businesses had already adjusted to working across multiple time zones and modern communication tools are effective in managing different zones. “So in that sense, I foresee little disruption here.”

He said the “only significant question” is how individuals might adjust when it comes to working and attending school during the darker winter months.

“I really cannot see any economic reasons why we should see any significant changes to business procedures and operations,” he said. “The only thing where it will be a little bit more noticeable will be in airline transportation. We will see the schedules getting rejigged a little bit, because we will be one hour off in the winter. But is something airlines will figure out and it may mean some small adjustments to flight schedules for British Columbians.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 2, 2026.

Wolfgang Depner, The Canadian Press