Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says with the province’s neighbours to the west moving to adopt year-round daylight time, it’s once again time to consider abandoning the practice of changing clocks twice a year.
British Columbia Premier David Eby says his province will spring forward an hour for the final time Sunday in an effort to make life easier.
B.C.’s new time zone will be called “Pacific Time”
That means it will be in lock-step with Alberta from November to March, and Alberta will sync with Saskatchewan from March to November.
Smith says along with Saskatchewan’s use of year-round central standard time, B.C.’s shift raises questions about whether Alberta should aim for consistency across the western provinces.
Almost five years ago, a referendum question was put to Albertans to keep daylight time year-round, but it failed by the narrowest of margins — 50.2 per cent to 49.8 per cent.
“Our government will take these recent developments under consideration and evaluate whether a similar change would be in the best interest of Albertans,” she said in a statement Monday
Alberta held a referendum on time change in 2021, with 50.2-per-cent of voters deciding to keep the clocks moving twice a year.
According to Dr. Raymond Lam, Professor at University of BC’s Department of Psychiatry, the “spring forward” change to DST has particularly negative effects, leading to an increase in accidents, heart attacks and sleep deprivation when we lose an hour of sleep every march.
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