Daylight saving time ends next Sunday, November 6, at 2 AM Most Canadians will turn their clocks back an hour, giving adults an extra hour of sleep and making the next two weeks a bit of hell for parents of young children. 2:13 Why do we observe daylight saving time and when did it start? Before you go to bed on Saturday night, be sure to set your clocks manually. Your digital and Wi-Fi connected devices should adjust automatically. Those living in the Yukon, most of Saskatchewan, and parts of BC and Quebec don’t have to do anything, as they stay on standard time year-round. Story continues below ad Changing the clocks has been a topic of discussion in Canada for many years, with provincial politicians in Alberta, B.C. and Ontario want to end the century-old practice. Ontario tabled and unanimously voted on a private member’s bill called the Time Change Act of 2020. They expect New York and Quebec to join, as the territories share trade and the federal government is split between the two provinces.
Read more: Time change: 9 things you didn’t know about DST around the world
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Time change: 9 things you didn’t know about DST around the world
The BC legislature passed similar legislation in 2019, but the process has been delayed as US states in the same time zone wait for California to pull the trigger. Alberta held a referendum on the idea last year, and just over half of those who voted wanted to keep daylight saving time. Daylight saving time was first proposed in 1895 by New Zealand entomologist George Hudson. He suggested the change because it would allow him more daylight hours to find and inspect insects. 7:10 How to better prepare for daylight and darker days The first documented cases of summer babysitting being adopted in the world happened right here in Canada. The small towns of Port Arthur and Fort William — which would eventually merge to become Thunder Bay, Ont. — adopted daylight saving time on May 1, 1908. Current trend
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Story continues below ad One resident, John Hewitson, wanted to give workers an extra hour of daylight for recreational activities after work. Several years later, the German Empire and Austria-Hungary were the first international countries to establish daylight saving time in 1916, as a way to save coal and fuel during the First World War.
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The idea behind the clock shift is to maximize sunlight in the Northern Hemisphere, as days begin to lengthen in the spring and then shorten in the fall. The logic is that by jumping ahead and falling back, people add an hour of sunlight to the end of the workday. But the benefits of this change are controversial, and the change may have measurable health effects. Doctors from the University of Turku in Finland have suggested that the risk of strokes and heart attacks increases by seven percent after the time change. In addition, the number of road accidents also tends to increase once we make the time change. (A study in the New England Journal of Medicine reported an eight percent increase in traffic accidents the day after the time change.) 4:23 Pros and cons of daylight saving time Canadian researchers warn that daylight savings time, and the twice-yearly change of clocks, may contribute to a phenomenon known as “social jet lag,” where people suffer from disturbed sleep and sleep debt, mental and physical fatigue, metabolic problems and but. Story continues below ad While experts agree that spring change hits us harder, there are also downsides to fall change. With less evening light and shortened days, there’s a tendency to be less active at night, Wendy Hall, a BC nurse and professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, told Global News last year. Going back to standard time in the fall has also been linked to depression due to seasonal affective disorder, where people become depressed due to less exposure to daylight, Hall said. — With files from Kevin Neilsen, Saba Aziz and Ahmar Khan of Global News 2:13 Why do we observe daylight saving time and when did it start? © 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
