In 2019, BC passed legislation to make daylight saving time permanent. But Premier John Horgan has said multiple times it will only be enacted once Washington state, Oregon and California do the same in order to keep the provincial economy in line with its US neighbours. Earlier this year, the US Senate voted unanimously to stop changing time twice a year. The House of Representatives, which has the ultimate say on the matter, cannot come to a consensus. Democratic Rep. Frank Pallone, who chairs the Energy and Commerce Committee that has jurisdiction over the issue, said in a statement to Reuters that the House was still trying to figure out how to move forward. “There is a wide variety of views on whether to keep the status quo, on moving to a permanent time and, if so, what time it should be,” Pallone said, adding that opinions are broken down by region, not by party. . Legislative aides told Reuters they do not expect Congress to reach a deal before the end of the year. Sponsors in the Senate will need to bring the bill back next year if it doesn’t pass by the end of 2022 — meaning a longer wait for the U.S. and, consequently, the B.C. Some British Columbians are getting impatient. Tara Holmes, co-founder of Stop The Time Change, said she doesn’t understand why BC should wait for the US to make the change. “We’re right next to Alberta and we still trade and trade with them. It’s only an hour difference and the same thing with the states,” he told CBC’s All Points West. “No one likes the time change. It no longer serves a purpose. Who will take the lead and the initiative?” In 2020, Yukon abandoned changing clocks. Saskatchewan has been in permanent central standard time for decades. Several northeastern communities in B.C. they never changed the clocks for the time of day. Laurie Ackerman, the outgoing mayor of Fort St. John, argues that leaving the clocks alone is the way to go. “First of all, you don’t lose your mind trying to figure out if you’re losing an hour or gaining an hour,” he said. “One of the advantages for me … is that it’s stable, it’s stable. You can’t cut a foot off a blanket, sew it to the top of a blanket and think you’ve got a longer blanket.”
