BC has no plans to get rid of Daylight Saving Time

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While municipalities from across BC have expressed strong support for abolishing Daylight Saving Time, Premier John Horgan said this week that there are no plans to make that happen anytime soon.

This, despite the fact that Horgan said he has received “literally thousands” of letters on the subject.

“We’ve looked into this, the Interpretation Act… that covers the time here in BC – seven hours from Greenwich Mean Time is what we go by, as does virtually every other jurisdiction on the west coast of North America,” he said. “Certainly our trading partners in Washington, Oregon and California have no interest in changing the time, that was made clear to me.”

Horgan said he knows the time change issue is a “passionate one” for British Columbians.

But, he added, “there are complications to our trading arrangement and being on the same time as the people you’re dealing with in the business day; we have not heard overwhelming support from the business community.”

As such, “we have no plans to change Daylight Savings.”

Support for scrapping Daylight Savings surfaced at the annual Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) meeting early this year.

A resolution put forth by the UBCM stated that “Daylight Savings time no longer serves a vital function in today’s connected economy.”

The annual fall time change takes place this Sunday at 2 am, when BC residents, (except for a few select regions in the northeast and southeast) set their clocks back by one hour.

For the most part, it will be effortless to change the time on your smartphones and computers as the time change should be automatic.

Daylight Saving Time originates from the Industrial Revolution when industrial societies began to organize the hours of daylight. It is utilized in most of North America, Europe, and parts of South America and Australia.

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