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By Marni Rose McFall
Reporter
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Millions are about to see daylight saving time (DST) become permanent, with British Columbia set to change their clocks for the last time on Sunday.
The Canadian province announced on Monday that they are set to adopt the new clock, putting an end to the biannual ritual of changing the time on your clocks and other devices.
Why It Matters
DST is the practice of setting the clocks forward by one hour during the warmer months of the year, extending daylight hours and reducing the need for artificial lighting.
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The practice is commonly used in multiple countries, including the U.S, when DST begins on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November.
Debates over doing away with DST have long circulated. A 2022 YouGov poll reported that almost two-thirds of the 1,000 U.S. adults surveyed wanted to end time changes.
However, people aren’t always aligned on what practice they would like to adopt instead. That YouGov poll saw 53 percent of people polled saying they wanted to make DST permanent, as opposed to 32 percent who preferred standard time.
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What To Know
The new time zone is called Pacific Time and puts the province in line with the Yukon Territory. That territory stopped changing its clocks back in 2020.
In a statement, officials said, "PT will be aligned with Alberta and other regions on Mountain Standard Time in the winter, and with California, Washington, Oregon and other Pacific Standard Time regions the rest of the year.”
They added that the change is “better for our health, our routines, and gives us an extra hour of daylight during those dark winter months.”
In the past, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine said that it is better to move away from time changes and stay with standard time. They said that this is better aligned with both the sun and human biology.
There have been multiple attempts in the U.S. to move away from DST. After the 2024 presidential election, President Donald Trump described the practice as both “inconvenient,” and “very costly to our nation.”
A new House bill l titled the Daylight Act of 2026, which proposed to end twice-yearly clock changes by permanently shifting U.S. 30 minutes and repealing DST was introduced earlier this year.
The elimination of the clock change would need approval from Congress. In the past, there have been a number of bipartisan efforts to pass a bill, but they all have failed.
What People Are Saying
The Government of British Columbia, in a post to Facebook: “When we turn the clocks ahead on March 8, it will be the last time change ever for BC. We're making Daylight Saving Time permanent, with a new time zone called Pacific Time (PT).”
What Happens Next
The Daylight Act of 2026 bill must advance through the House and Senate and be signed by the president to become law. As of its introduction, it remained in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce with no further action recorded.
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