Will daylight saving time become permanent? Why making the change is tough
Canada and the U.S. is set to spring ahead to daylight saving time (DST) this Sunday.
But for Canadians tired of the time jumps, could jurisdictions in the country actually manage to make DST permanent?Peter Graefe, associate professor of political science at McMaster University, said it won’t be easy. “It’s difficult because it’s a collective action problem,” he said.“If all the provinces and the states move at the same time, then we’re all in the sort of same relationship with each other.
Whereas if just certain provinces were going to move, then suddenly they would be off-kilter with their neighbouring states and provinces.”According to some historians and archivists, DST originated around 1908 and 1909 in what is now Thunder Bay, Ont.But the province where it likely began has indicated that it wants to end the time-change system. In 2020, the Ontario legislature unanimously passed a private member bill called ‘The Time Amendment Act’, which sought to make DST permanent.While some jurisdictions in Canada, including Yukon and Saskatchewan, have permanent DST, Graefe said many will look to Canada’s most populous province as a bellwether.
“I suspect other provinces would see whether the sky fell or not if Ontario was to be the first mover,” he said.But Ontario is looking for cues south of the border. The 2020 bill had one key stipulation — Ontario would only move on DST if New York and Quebec did.“Economic problems would be caused if you have a single mover rather than having everyone move together,” Graefe said.British Columbia, too, took a big swing in this direction with a 2019 law that would make the change permanent, but it did not set a date for the change.
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