Experts slam B.C. moving to Daylight Time for good
Posted March 3, 2026 7:44 am.
Not everyone is on board after the provincial government announced B.C. would be changing its clocks for the last time this weekend and moving permanently to Daylight Time.
Dr. Wendy Hall is a professor emeritus at the UBC School of Nursing. She’s also a registered nurse and thinks the change is a bad idea. If anything, she’s pushing for the province to move to Standard Time year-round instead.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO 1130 NEWSRADIO VANCOUVER LIVE!“We’ve mostly done research around what happens when we change back and forth… and what we’ve found is people have biological clocks, and every element of our body is run by those biological clocks. So, it’s not just in our brain, it affects our gut, our hearts, the hormones we secrete — all those things,” Hall explained.
“And our body clocks are aligned with the sun clock, and the sun clock is what gives us the indication of what needs to happen with our body clocks.”
“If we go to Daylight Time, we’re not operating on sun time, we’re operating on clock time.”
She feels the change will mess with British Columbians’ circadian rhythms with darker mornings in the winter.
“Our circadian rhythms are actually a little bit longer than 24 hours; it’s about 24.2 hours. It’s really important for us to have that natural morning light as a way to reset our circadian rhythms for the day. If we go to Daylight Time, we’re not operating on sun time, we’re operating on clock time because we’re deciding that we can ignore what’s going on with the sun and we can set our clocks an hour forward and carry on as though there’s going to be no impact on people.”
Hall warns it will have negative consequences for an already struggling health-care system.
“There’s research that indicates people with mental health problems, particularly bipolar, depression and major depression, benefit from good morning light because it helps reduce their symptoms. They do not benefit from more exposure to evening light. There have been some studies in counties in the U.S. that have shown teenagers who are on permanent Daylight Time have lower graduation rates and poorer outcomes at school. We know kids that have short sleep duration are more at risk for anti-social behaviour, drug-taking, obesity and behavioural difficulties.”
She says she can’t make sense of why the province us promoting more evening daylight hours as the selling point of the change.
“There’s some research that indicates that [people] might have more physical activity in the evenings, as a result of that extra hour of sunlight. There’s also research that indicates that people shop more.”
Hall is clearing up what she feels are misconceptions about the change.
“People have this idea that somehow Daylight Time gives us more sunlight — it doesn’t. It just moves when we get exposed to that sunlight to a different time of day.
She’s not convinced the government won’t backtrack on this idea one day.
“It is a fear that could happen. And I do know we’re paying a lot of money on health care, and I do know that going to permanent Daylight Time is going to be associated with more health problems.”
Ryan Mitton, director of legislative affairs in B.C. for the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), says the announcement caught some small business owners by surprise.
“It was following a rushed and fairly limited consultation with government. [This] is going to cause some uncertainty because we’re not going to be in line with other jurisdictions.”
Mitton adds that the CFIB recently asked its members about the time change, but explains they were split on whether to move to Daylight Time or Standard Time.
“The main message that came across was we have to do this in a way that makes sense and do it in line with other jurisdictions. If you’re a company that works with other companies in the United States or other provinces, you want to do that in a way that’s coordinated, so it’s not causing confusion for your employees and your contracts.”
He thinks the province is only announcing this now to distract people from the 2026 budget, which was smothered in red ink. The CFIB says a year into a trade war triggered by the U.S., business owners in this province need financial assistance dealing with tariffs, not a time change announcement.
The framework for changing the clocks was introduced in 2019 under the late Premier John Horgan. At the time, B.C. said it wouldn’t make the move unless Washington state, Oregon and California did it too, but that’s no longer the case.
B.C. will be on the same time zone as Yukon and the same as Alberta from November to March. However, it will be one hour ahead of the aforementioned states during the winter months.
Impact on sports
The change does not mean that every Vancouver Canucks game must begin at 8 p.m., despite some fans sharing concerns on social media Monday.
If the Canucks play on Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday between November and March, the game will start at 8 p.m. If it’s a regional broadcast on Sportsnet, like Monday night against the Dallas Stars, puck drop will still be at 7 p.m.
The change fans see will be based on national broadcast windows to air games.
However, now that the Canucks will be an hour ahead of the California teams and the Seattle Kraken, a road game against those clubs mid-week will likely begin at either 8 p.m. or 8:30 p.m.
Simply, sports fans only need to add an hour to the usual schedule between November and March. Sunday morning NFL games will start at 11 a.m., not 10 a.m. Kick-off at the Super Bowl will be at 4:30 p.m., instead of 3:30 p.m.
—With files from Kurt Black
