Spring forward: When is the time change?

Clockmaker Scott Gow adjusts the hands of a clock at the Electric Time Company, Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Medfield, Mass. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

There have been brief windows of warmer weather, the sun seems to be rising a bit earlier and it’s almost time for an annual tradition.

What time does daylight saving start?

Daylight time, the tradition observed for more than a century, starts Sunday.

Officially, it begins at 2 a.m. local time, at which point, the time becomes 3 a.m.

Do we lose or gain an hour?

While some parts of the country no longer observe the change, the majority of Canadians will set their clocks forward an hour on Sunday morning. The sudden shift forward means sunset and sunrise will be about an hour later, and we lose an hour of the day.

Months later, much of the country will “fall back” – setting the clocks an hour behind – at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 2. At this point, we gain back the hour.

It’s controversial move, and twice a year experts speak publicly about the impacts of the seasonal changes on our sleep and productivity, as well as links to health complications such as headaches and heart problems.

Politicians, too, have considered cutting it at times, but the consensus has largely been that it would be challenging for Canadians to stop the change – either making daylight time permanent, or ceasing the March switch – if the U.S. doesn’t go along with it as well.

Will Trump end daylight time?

Recent comments from U.S. President Donald Trump suggest it’s possible that at some point, the country may set the clocks one final time, and stop changing them.

Posting when he was still president-elect, Trump said in early January that an end to daylight time might be on his party’s agenda.

“Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” he wrote on social media, pledging that Republicans would use their “best efforts” to put an end to it.

Since then, though, he has appeared to back off the idea. On Thursday, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the public was split on whether the country should stay in standard time or daylight time.

On Wednesday, Elon Musk posted on X asking whether voters would prefer to remain in permanent daylight time.

Five years ago, the U.S. Senate passed a bill that proposed making daylight time permanent, meaning there would be no change in the fall. The bill stalled when it reached the House of Representatives, where delegates were unable to decide if it was better to keep permanent daylight time, or set the clocks once more in the fall, and then leave it.

With files from The Canadian Press and Reuters