Time for a change: British Columbia decides to keep daylight saving time permanently

Original article by Leyland Cecco in Toronto

Since 1918, the clocks in Creston, a town in eastern British Columbia, ran an hour ahead of nearby communities for half the year. For the other six months, they slipped back into sync. Not because they town changed them but because its neighbours changed back and forth from daylight saving time.

Creston was an outlier: a community that effectively created its own time zone. But when residents in most parts of the province shift their clocks forward on Sunday, they will be doing it for the last time – and permanently joining Creston for the first time in nearly 70 years.

Last week, British Columbia announced plans to create the Pacific time zone, a decision that reflects both a broad dislike in the province of changing clocks – and an increasingly tense relationship with the United States. But the province then said that while it will create the new Pacific time zone, municipalities will be free to choose their own time zones, raising the possibility of more “time zone islands” like Creston.

“We are done waiting. British Columbia is going to change our clocks just one more time – and then never again,” BC’s premier, David Eby, told reporters, adding he hoped “our American neighbours” will adopt a similar change. The move puts BC in line with the Yukon territory to its north.

In 2019, public consultations revealed that 93% of residents surveyed said they wanted permanent daylight saving time. But despite that strength of feeling, BC has kept switching in order to match the US and facilitate cross-border trade and travel.

Announcing the new policy, however, the province cited “recent actions” from its southern neighbour, in what was likely a reference to the sustained trade war and threats to Canadian sovereignty from the Trump administration.

According to provincial authorities, the changes will lead to “more usable light in the evenings in winter” and a “reduced administrative burden” for swaths of the province.

The Peace region in northern BC, which previously observed mountain standard time year-round, will now be on the same time as most other places in British Columbia with the new time zone. Previously, the region spent its winters aligned with Alberta and then one hour behind in the summer.

The new time zone means that other mountain communities that observe mountain time, but switch between standard and daylight saving times, will be aligned with the rest of the province during the winter months, but will be one hour ahead in the summer.

But those towns could shift – either as a group or on their own, like Creston did.

“Just as they can today, local governments will retain the power to determine what time zone they observe,” the government said. “They can choose to shift to permanent daylight time and Pacific time, along with the rest of BC, if they prefer.”

“The feedback we’ve received from the public … is [that] people want to be on the same time as the rest of British Columbia,” Cranbrook’s mayor, Wayne Price, told CBC News.

Industry groups expressed frustration with the move.

“The unilateral change in time is an unwelcome distraction that will make it more difficult to attract and retain businesses in British Columbia,” Bridgitte Anderson, president and CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, said in a statement. “The choice to change the time unilaterally will create an additional headache for businesses operating on both sides of the border.”

The Vancouver airport authority said it would “work with industry to better understand the potential schedule and passenger implications” of shifting time zones without neighbouring jurisdictions doing the same.