The Premier of British Columbia David Eby speaks during a vigil to honor the victims of one of Canada’s deadliest mass shootings in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, Canada, on February 13, 2026. (Photo by Paige Taylor White / AFP via Getty Images)
British Columbia says this weekend will be the last time most in the province have to change their clocks as the province moves to permanently adopt year-round daylight saving time.
B.C. Premier David Eby announced on March 2 that the province is making the shift to end time changes after changing the clocks ahead an hour for the final time on March 8.
“We’re going to decide what’s best for British Columbians and British Columbia families, and we’re going to stay on permanent Daylight Savings Time,” Eby said at a March 2 press conference.
“That means an extra hour of sunshine for families and moving our clocks to keep the sun up when the majority of the things that we do at home and in our lives take place.”
He said the time change is linked to a range of problems, from more car accidents to children and parents losing sleep.
B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma also spoke at the press conference and said that on Nov. 1, 2026, when clocks would normally be turned back an hour, no change will be made in British Columbia and the province will have fully transitioned to the new time zone, called “Pacific time.”
Pacific time will be set seven hours behind the coordinated universal time and will align with Alberta and other regions observing Mountain Standard Time from November to March, Sharma said. The rest of the year, Pacific time will align with California, Washington, Oregon, and other Pacific daylight jurisdictions.
British Columbians won’t experience any changes until November, Sharma said, adding that this will give businesses and institutions the necessary time to prepare for the transition.
British Columbia has observed the bi-annual time change since 1918, Sharma said, noting that the time change has caused “confusion and tiredness,” and ending the time change will help shift workers “no longer have to face this twice yearly adjustment period to their schedules, their sleep, their work, [and] their health.”
“We have heard the overwhelming majority of people in B.C. who want to end the back-and-forth of seasonal time changes,” Sharma said in a March 2 statement.
Feedback From Residents
British Columbia surveyed 223,000 residents in 2019 and found that 93 percent supported ending time changes and adopting year-round daylight saving time, the province said in an August 2019 report. Support for year-round daylight time was higher than 90 percent across all regions, industry groups, and nearly all occupations.
The biggest concerns British Columbians said they had with time changes were related to safety, health, and wellness. Respondents also said they preferred year-round daylight time for additional daylight during the evening commute in the winter.
Three-quarters of those who preferred retaining the bi-annual time changes, which was 7 percent of all respondents, said they preferred to balance daylight hours throughout the year.
The Interpretation Amendment Act, which is the legal framework allowing the province to adopt permanent Daylight Savings Time, became law in 2019, the province said in a March 2 news release.
The province says Daylight Savings Time is the period from mid-March to mid-November each year when clocks are set forward one hour from Standard Time. Standard Time is observed from mid-November to mid-March and is when the sun rises and sets one hour earlier than it would during Daylight Savings Time.
Eby noted his government was waiting for the province’s neighbouring U.S. states in the same time zone to make the change together, but those states had to wait for approval from Congress.
“Making this change now reflects the current preferences and needs of British Columbians, and helps ensure the province is well-positioned to thrive, even when circumstances across the border evolve,” the province said.
Meanwhile, there are a small number of communities in eastern parts of British Columbia that observe “some form of mountain time” instead of Pacific time, and the new changes will not affect those regions, the province said.
Yukon stopped changing its clocks bi-annually in 2020 and now follows its own standard year-round time zone, while will now be aligned with British Columbia’s Pacific time.
The province of Saskatchewan also doesn’t participate in the time change, and hasn’t changed its clocks for more than 100 years.
Most Canadians observe the bi-annual time changes in the other provinces and territories.