Sunday March 12, 2023 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
Abandoning Daylight Savings Time is not in the cards for 2023 in British Columbia.
This Sunday morning March 12, at 2 am clocks were turned forward by one hour for the annual daylight savings time ritual.
Sunrise and sunset will come about one hour later on March 12 than the day before. There will be more light in the evening.
That lasts through the spring, summer and fall, until Sunday November 5 when time will go back to Standard Time.
Easy technology:
Automated clocks on computers and phones move forward one hour.
If you have some older or more conventional clocks in your world — such as on ovens, traditional alarm clocks, or in an older car — you will need to manually adjust the time forward by one hour.
Sleep disruption:
Many people are often sleep deprived in our busy modern society. Those who report serious concern about impacts on their health or ability to concentrate when they ‘lose’ an hour of sleep are likely the ones already grappling with insufficient sleep.
The ‘lost’ hour is restored in the fall when clocks are turned back to Standard time.
The politics of time:
Under former Premier John Horgan there were legislative moves to abandon the changing of clocks — and to stay at Daylight Savings Time year round. That was pre-pandemic, and other concerns took precedence in 2020-2022.
There’s also been the issue of waiting to see what the American states to the south of BC will do. If Oregon, Washington and California stay with one time (no back and forth) then BC will likely go that way too. The argument is that aligning with other jurisdictions with which a lot of trade and commerce is done (including tourism) makes sense. Likely so.
This year Premier David Eby says that BC will likely change to no-change-of-time if and when the USA does it.
Many years ago Daylight Savings Time happened in April. It got moved back into March in BC (under then Premier Christy Clark) to help with participation in outdoor winter sports. And before that in the USA (under President George W Bush) the reason for moving Daylight Savings Time to earlier in the year was to presumably give farmers more daylight hours, but farmers generally by necessity follow solar time (when the sun’s up, it’s up).
People in urban areas generally find benefits to more daylight in the evening during Daylight Savings Time for outdoor activities such as gardening, recreation, sports and family activities. In theory, there is also the savings of electricity by using less electricity in the evening for lighting (but that’s possibly balanced out by needing more lights on in the morning to prepare for work or school).
Some jurisdictions don’t change:
Daylight Savings Time (DST) is observed in most parts of Canada and the US. In our geographical region, Yukon stays permanently on DST. Saskatchewan mostly stays on Standard Time year round.
The rhythm of time:
In addition to astronomers paying attention to time clocks, the work of astrologers is also impacted.
Natal birth charts and event charts are calculated based on the time of an event, and knowing which time zone and whether daylight or standard, is important to know as it indicates where the house cusps will fall and colour the entire reading of the chart based on which houses the Sun and planets fall.
===== RELATED:
Daylight Savings Time in 2022 starts Sunday March 13 (Mar 12, 2022)
Daylight Savings Time in 2021 starts Sunday March 11 (March 12, 2021)
Daylights Savings Time 2020 begins March 8 (March 7, 2020)
Daylight Savings Time 2019 begins March 10 (March 9, 2019)
Daylight Savings Time won’t be cancelled in BC (November 1, 2018)
===== ABOUT ISLAND SOCIAL TRENDS:
Island Social Trends is a professional news service that covers news of the west shore of Greater Victoria on south Vancouver Island, as well as BC-wide and national issues. Editor and publisher: Mary P Brooke.
Island Social Trends launched entirely online at islandsocialtrends.ca in mid-2020, in the footstep of its predecessor publications MapleLine Magazine (2008-2010), Sooke Voice News (2011-2013) and West Shore Voice News (2014-2020).
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