Canadian MP introducing bill to end "outdated" daylight saving time change
If you’re tired of the daylight saving time change, a new Private Member’s Bill could end the practice once and for all.
Orléans Liberal MP Marie-France Lalonde is leading the charge against time changes, announcing that she will introduce the bill to “establish one set time in Canada.”
“Canadians will often engage in conversation or debates about why it is we continue to change our clocks back and forward,” she said in a press conference on Oct. 2, exactly one month before daylight saving time ends. “Today, I’m here to say the time has come to address time change.”
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She made the announcement alongside members of the Canadian Sleep Research Consortium, with whom she consulted for months regarding the practice of time change.
Lalonde called the biannual daylight saving time change “outdated” and argued that it increases costs for small businesses and employers, impacts the work of Canada’s agricultural sector, adds provincial barriers by having markets open at different times, and has proven to negatively impact public safety.
“We know that there are more road accidents, including pedestrians getting hit by cars, that happen when the time changes,” she shared as an example.
The MP added that it makes life hard on families, on vulnerable seniors who rely on routine, and has “tremendous health and mental health consequences.”
According to a report by the Canadian Sleep Research Consortium, the daylight saving time changes significantly impact the biological clock, which regulates most of the body’s functions.
“The time change creates a mismatch between the biological clock, the schedule dictated by social constraints, and the light-dark cycle,” it reads. “Scientific laboratory studies have shown that this type of shift notably causes an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and inflammation in the body, disrupts our metabolism and weakens our immune system.”
This can manifest physically through an increase in heart attacks, strokes, infectious and immune-related diseases, digestive system problems, deterioration in mental health, and even pregnancy and birth complications, according to field studies cited by the consortium.
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“The statistic that shocked me, I think the most…is an 11 to 15 per cent increase in miscarriages during the spring change,” noted Lalonde.
She said her bill will call on the federal government to hold a pan-Canadian conference alongside other provincial and territorial counterparts, as well as Indigenous partners, to formalize an agreement to end time changes.
Canadian Sleep Research Consortium member Rébecca Robillard added that the scientific community is eager to share research on the impacts of time change, as well as the potential outcomes of maintaining permanent standard time. She said permanent standard time would align with the natural cycle of the sun.
Daylight saving time is set to end next month in six time zones across the country: Pacific, Mountain, Central, Eastern, and Atlantic. Newfoundland DST is also 30 minutes behind Atlantic time.
There are already regions in Canada that have scrapped daylight saving time, including most of Saskatchewan, some parts of Quebec and B.C., all of Yukon, and Nunavut’s Southampton Island.
Lalonde isn’t the only Canadian who dislikes the biannual time changes.
Since 2019, a petition to abolish the time change altogether has been circulating in Canada.
Daylight saving time was first implemented in 1908 in Thunder Bay, then known as Port Arthur. It was the first municipality in the world to start the custom.
Daily Hive has reached out to Lalonde’s office for additional comment.