SOUND OFF: For a stronger BC, it’s time for a change
DEAR MR. EBY and Members of the Legislature,
I write this open letter to you all concerning a topic that I feel is critically important — the archaic practice of Daylight Savings in British Columbia. In 2019, BC held a referendum to end the practice of Daylight Savings, which passed. Your predecessors’ set up the legislation to enact it. Yet you have sat on it, and here we are in 2025 with another time change on our hands.
The primary excuse used for the delay of this enactment has been that our trading partners south of the border have not implemented a similar end to Daylight Savings. In the light of the economic uncertainty being generated by the U.S. and the geopolitical turmoil of the Trump administration, I find this to remain a poor excuse. But even if there wasn’t this uncertainty, I would consider it a poor excuse. You and the other premiers talk of breaking down barriers for interprovincial trade to produce a stronger, self-sufficient Canadian economy. Perhaps this mindset of “we couldn’t possibly trade with someone in a different time zone!” is exactly one of those barriers that needs to be broken. After all, our fellow Canadians to the north of us have already ended the practice, and indeed even part of our own province exists in a different time zone. Can you provide evidence that trade between Vancouver and Whitehorse or between Vancouver and Cranbrook has been negatively impacted by these time differences?
The fact is that changing our clocks twice a year disrupts nearly every person in the province. There is even growing scientific and research-based evidence that productivity is lost due to the disruption in our sleep cycles every year. So, by stalling on this topic to “protect trade” you may, in fact, be harming our economy.
