If you’re tired of the long winter nights and looking forward to brighter days ahead, you may be wondering when Daylight Saving Time (DST) comes into effect in Canada in 2025.
Although springing forward means you’re losing an hour of sleep, Daylight Saving brings a welcome change to those who are ready to get outside and enjoy the new season around B.C.
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How did Daylight Saving Time start?
The origins of DST are credited to a few people.
The first is George Vernon Hudson, a British-born New Zealander, who proposed the idea of Daylight Saving Time in 1895.
As an entomologist, Hudson treasured the daylight hours he had after work, which he used to collect insects. This led to the idea of changing the clocks to allow for more daylight in the summer, which he presented in a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society in 1895. He even got a medal for it – the T.K. Sidey Medal.
It’s reported that Benjamin Franklin also proposed saving daylight in 1784 when he advocated ringing church bells and firing cannons at the crack of dawn to save money on candles and lamp oil.
The Farmers’ Almanac notes that the true founder of DST was an Englishman named William Willet, who came up with the idea while riding his horse one morning in 1907.
In Willet’s “The Waste of Daylight” manifesto, he wrote: “Everyone appreciates the long, light, evenings. Everyone laments their shrinkage as the days grow shorter, and nearly everyone has given utterance to a regret that the nearly clear, bright light of an early morning during spring and summer months is so seldom seen or used…”
Thunder Bay was the first Canadian city to adopt the practice of Daylight Savings in 1908.
Daylight Saving Time caught on across the world due to a global energy crisis during the 1970s.
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Daylight Savings isn’t a universal practice
There are some places in the world such as Argentina, Chile, Iceland, Singapore, Uzbekistan, and Belarus that have all permanently set their clocks forward in an effort to get more daylight out of each day to save on energy.
Many folks disagree with the concept of Daylight Saving Time altogether, believing that the benefits are outweighed by the detriments.
In the U.S., California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho formed a working group proposing legislation to make Pacific Standard Time permanent in those specific states.
Here in Canada, British Columbians were promised a switch to permanent DST by former premier John Horgan but those plans have been slow to progress.
The Yukon pushed to make DST permanent in 2020.
When does daylight saving time start in 2025?
According to The Old Farmers’ Almanac, Daylight Saving Time (DST) will have us officially springing forward by one hour on Sunday, March 9, at 2 a.m. local time.
In B.C., this means that sunset will jump from 6:09 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, 2025, to 7:10 p.m. on Sunday, March 9, 2025, based on the current sunset time.
The clocks will then change once again as we “fall back” by one hour on Sunday, Nov. 3.
Are you in favour of Daylight Saving Time? Let us know in the comments.
With files from Daily Hive Staff