The history behind Daylight Saving Time in Canada

Like clockwork, every year, daylight saving time sparks a heated debate about whether it should exist at all.

This year, the discussion was reignited after British Columbia announced that it is adopting permanent year-round daylight saving time (DST) after clocks move forward an hour on Sunday, March 8. That means that B.C. won't be falling back one hour to standard time in November.

The move has divided British Columbians. Many are happy not to have to reset their clocks twice a year, while others think it's "the stupidest idea ever conceived," pointing out how dark it will be outside at 9 a.m. next winter.

Daylight saving time affects six time zones across the country: Pacific, Mountain, Central, Eastern, and Atlantic. Newfoundland DST is also 30 minutes behind Atlantic time.

All of B.C. now joins most of Saskatchewan, parts of Quebec, all of Yukon and Nunavut's Southampton Island as regions in Canada that don't observe the time change.

But how did we get to where we are today with time changes? Here's a brief history of when and why Canada adopted daylight saving time.

Who invented modern daylight saving time?

Unknown photographer, Public domain/Wikimedia Commons.

New Zealand entomologist George Hudson is credited with having first proposed modern DST. In 1895, he presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society, proposing a two-hour shift forward in October and a two-hour shift back in March. Although there was interest in the idea, it was never implemented.

Germany and Austria were the first countries to implement DST during WWI. Clocks were turned ahead by one hour on April 30, 1916, two years into the war. They did this to conserve fuel during wartime.

Canada's adoption of DST

Pugh Manufacturing Co. Ltd.(author)Pugh Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (publisher), Public domain/Wikimedia Commons.

Although Germany and Austria were the first countries to popularize DST, one city in Ontario was actually the first in the world to implement the time change.

Port Arthur, Ontario (which is now a part of Thunder Bay), was the first-ever city to turn its clocks forward one hour on July 1, 1908, enacting the world's first DST period.

Other regions in Canada followed suit, with Saskatchewan's capital, Regina, implementing DST on April 23, 1914. Winnipeg and Brandon, M.B., started changing their clocks on April 24, 1916.

Since the late 1960s, Canada has closely synchronized daylight saving time with the United States for economic and social purposes. Canada followed suit after the U.S. standardized DST in 1966.

Daylight saving time ended in October until 1986, when the end of the period changed to November.