Let the sun set on Daylight Savings Time

Image by: Amelia Rankine

Daylight Savings Time (DST) has more drawbacks than benefits. It’s time we stick to keeping clocks the same year-round.

Last Sunday, the Toronto Star’s Editorial Board stated its support for the end of DST—and The Journal’s Board agrees. 

In practice, switching the few clocks that don’t change the time automatically isn’t a big deal. It’s the principle behind DST that draws criticism.

The movement to end the bi-annual tradition is steadily growing. The practice is based on outdated principles: it was originally instated as a wartime effort to save on energy.

But if the grumblings that coincide with the changing clocks are any indication, the practice no longer works to people’s benefits. As such, we should do away with it.

There’s a human cost associated with the fairly arbitrary DST change, and it’s all the more reason to get rid of it.

Feeling like you’ve gained an extra hour in your day in the fall can be nice, but losing an hour of rest in the spring has its downfalls beyond inconvenience.

The “spring ahead” shift in the clocks has been linked to several serious repercussions. Data has shown that in the days following the change, there is an increase in the risk of heart attacks and number of fatal car crashes. 

In Canada, it’s up to each province and territory to reject the DST changes. Yukon has already made the change, and B.C. has passed a law to do the same. 

But in the US, states can’t ditch the time changes without federal permission. This means that provinces that don’t want to find themselves out of sync with the states below them in the same time zone might have second thoughts about making the switch.

Even provinces that move away from DST on their own will find themselves further out of sync with their other Canadian neighbours for part of the year.

Ideally, both Canada and the US would join the other countries, like those in the EU, worldwide in abandoning DST in favour of keeping clocks the same all year.

DST is an inconvenience for Ontarians, and it’s becoming increasingly unnecessary as other provinces move away from the change.   

We can do without a little less sunlight during certain parts of the year in order to avoid the confusion associated with changing the clocks by an hour twice a year.

That would allow us to reduce the disruption to people’s day-to-day lives that can have serious consequences.

—Journal Editorial Board

Tags

Ontario, Time

All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.

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