The health debate between the new B.C. time zone or twice-annual clock change

While it is welcome news to many that B.C.’s time zone will not fall back an hour on Nov. 1, experts have raised concerns about the specific time zone the government chose to stay in.

Last March, Premier David Eby announced that B.C. would officially move to permanent daylight saving time and end the twice-yearly clock changes in the fall and spring.

This meant that the clock change on March 8, 2026, when we sprung forward one hour, was the last time B.C. would change its clocks.

The province is officially leaving behind permanent standard time — the time zone we would normally be switching to in November. Instead, B.C. will remain in permanent daylight saving time, which the Province has officially renamed Pacific Time (PCT).

At the time, Eby said that it would improve health, reduce disruptions for families, and allow an extra hour of light during winter evenings.

Patrick Baylis, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver School of Economics, is the co-author of a recent analysis that examined the health impacts of adopting permanent standard time or permanent daylight saving time.

“I think compared to the previous [twice-annual] switching, it’s a little bit of an improvement,” he told Daily Hive in an interview.

Baylis said that the twice-annual switches resulted in people losing that hour of sleep every spring, which would affect them for several weeks after and contribute to risks like an increased likelihood of car accidents, as well as behavioural, learning, or attention issues in adolescents.

However, Baylis noted, “we think permanent standard would have been the better choice.”

Permanent standard time was created so that time zones align with the day-night cycle, so that the sun is directly overhead at noon. This time zone gave people more opportunity to get morning light during the short winter days, which ultimately helps people sleep better.

What are the health impacts associated with the new time zone?

With B.C.’s new time zone, most residents who work until 5 p.m. will have the opportunity to enjoy some evening daylight after working hours — something we missed out on in previous years when we fell back an hour. According to B.C., this gives people “more usable light in the evenings in the winter,” with more additional time for leisure, the outdoors, and “consumer activity.”

Baylis said there’s validity to this argument.

“Ultimately, policy choices are about trade-offs. I think the more visible benefit here is that you get that afternoon light. You can participate in leisure activities and go golf after work; you can see your friends for a sunlit beer at the pub. All these things are great.”

He said there’s evidence that there’s increased retail activity when there’s more light at the end of the day.

But there’s an obvious trade-off to this: less light in the morning.

Baylis said places that have chosen permanent saving time — like B.C. has — have seen documented health, productivity, and even economic consequences.

“The short of it is that sunlight is a really important trigger for our biological circadian clocks. It tells us to wake up. It starts kind of a ticking timer that runs throughout the day that then subsequently tells it to go to sleep,” he said.

If people don’t get this morning light, they don’t “kick off that timer,” which results in a weaker sleep signal at nighttime. This causes people to stay up later and get less sleep than what they need.

“This shows up in the sleep science literature, where you see people sleeping less when they’re exposed to sunrise later in the day,” Baylis said.

This loss of sleep has effects on mental health and is particularly problematic for students, who tend to perform less well with a later sunrise because adolescents typically have a later circadian rhythm.

Further, Baylis said that switching to permanent savings time has the long-term effect of reducing wages by three to four per cent.

He said studies that compared regions in the U.S. where sunrises are later against regions where sunrises are earlier (controlling for other variables that could affect productivity) found this notable difference in wages.

“They’re not working as much; they’re a little more tired,” he said.

Baylis said he is not suggesting that this is something that B.C. will see right away, as those differences have “played out over a century,” but that we might start to see a “small reduction in productivity.”

What can we do?

Shortly after B.C. announced the new PCT time zone in March, Daily Hive interviewed Ralph Mistlberger, a psychology professor at Simon Fraser University who researches the functions of circadian rhythms and sleep. He recommended that people purchase a light therapy lamp (often sold at pharmacies), which has a much higher level of light output than normal lights, and turn it on in the morning.

In the evenings, he said it’s a good idea to minimize light exposure, since artificial light can delay your circadian clock. This, in turn, suppresses melatonin secretion from the pineal gland, which starts to occur in the evening prior to when we go to sleep.

Baylis added that at a policy level, school districts should consider shifting school openings a bit later to support students’ learning. Further, safety is another important consideration, as drivers will now be much less rested and driving in the dark for about three months out of the year, instead of three weeks.

“We should be thoughtful about trying to manage and mitigate some of the potential safety concerns there, in terms of providing lighting, making sure that there are sidewalks available, making sure that we have transportation stoplight policies — like no right turn on red — that reduce the likelihood of pedestrian-automobile accidents.”