This year, many parts of Canada dispensed with resetting clocks on November 1, instead sticking with Daylight Savings Time all year round. BC got the ball rolling after a survey indicated the population’s preference for this. Alberta then followed, despite the fact that in their (earlier and obviously non-binding) referendum, people narrowly selected sticking with the clock changing. Saskatchewan has long stayed on Standard Central Time all year round.
Manitoba was the final province to join in. Though their Premier pitched sticking with Standard Time, in a survey, the population voted for Daylight Time instead, so that’s what he implemented. Then the Northwest Territories decided to join in, along with the northwest part of Ontario that has always followed Manitoba time. It ends up like this for the winter:
Not to be left out, the new Premier of Quebec says he wants to stop with the clock changing as well, but hasn’t decided whether to go with Standard or Daylight Time as the permanent setting. For Ontario (other than the northwest), there is already a law that Ontario will stick with Daylight Time if Quebec and the state of New York does. The US Congress has passed a law to stick with Daylight Time, but the Senate hasn’t, so clock changing still occurs in that country for the time being.
Politicians—and many people, intuitively—like to stick with Daylight Time because the bright evenings seem more fun and useful than bright morning. Certainly it’s always a shock when the evenings suddenly get dark so early after “fall back” day. But I do wonder how much people will like the months of dark morning they are about to go through this year. For example, this year, people in Rupert, BC won’t get sunrise until 10:02 AM in late December. It’s because of these dark mornings that many past attempts to stick with Daylight Time all year have failed and been reverted in various places around the world, including the US.
Sleep experts do say that, of the two options, it’s generally better to stick with Standard Time, because morning light is more beneficial than evening light. Getting up in the dark every day for months leaves you in a state of chronic jet lag, they say.
Now, people do have different Chronotypes, and I wonder if the so-called Wolves, more commonly called Night Owls, who truly function best by sleeping in and staying up later, might actually benefit from permanent Daylight Time. But to be noted that’s only 15 to 20% of the population. Most people, more than half, are Bears, who do best waking up with the sun and going to bed around 10 or 11 PM. And will the Lions (or “early birds”) really sleep in at all from their usual 5 AM rising when they’re facing four or five hours of darkness, still?
I’m not crazy about changing the clocks, but I’m also dubious about permanent Daylight Time. On Standard Time this year, sunrise is continue to get later from now until January 3, when it will occur at 7:55 AM. A switch to Daylight Time would mean no full daylight until darn near 9:00 AM, which hardly seems ideal. Is the fact that sunset would be around 5:45 PM instead of 4:45 PM in late December be enough compensation for that? Not sure.
If we did end up with permanent Standard Time, what we’d lose are the particularly long evenings of daylight in the summer months, at a time when the sun rises quite early. Instead of sunset being as late as 9:07 PM in June, the best we’d get is 8:07 PM.
The fact is there’s no perfect model here, given that there just aren’t that many hours of daylight in the winter—no matter how you slice it—whereas in the summer, some of the daylight inevitably occurs before most people (everyone except the annoying Lions 😁) want to get up.
Also worth noting:
- This is all rather moot to Northern people, who really don’t have much sunlight in the winter, and not much darkness in the summer. There’s just no adjusting clocks to that. For example, in Yellowknife in December, they get about 5 hours of sunlight a day. The sun rises around 11:00 AM, and sets around 4:00 PM. Then in June, they get about 19 hours of sunlight, the sun rising around 3:40 AM and setting around 11:40 PM.
- People on the edges of wide time zones get hosed no matter how the clocks are set, ending up with too much darkness either in the morning or in the evening compared to those living more in the middle of these zones.
The wiser thing would be to adjust when we do things according to the season instead trying to set our clocks at some optimum point. Why does everything start at the same all year long? What if schools, stores, offices, etc. started at a later time in the fall and winter, and at an earlier one in the spring and summer? Couldn’t cities on the edges of time zones adjusted opening and closing times to when their daylight occurs?
… That will never happen under capitalism, right? Too logical? Too humane?
But something to think about to the extent that you do have flexibility in your life. If you can flex your work hours, maybe you should change them seasonally and start / finish later in the winter, then earlier in the summer. Maybe you could seasonally shift when you do some of your leisure activities—morning workout in June becomes evening workout in December. That sort of thing.
You can’t control the sun. You can only decide what you’ll do when it’s out (to the extent that capitalism, and the demands of your pets and children and other dependents, allow you to).
This post, em dashes, bullets, and all, is written entirely by me, with no AI assistance.
