How do Albertans feel about Daylight Saving Time after gaining an hour?

Do Albertans still support the time change? The debate about whether Alberta should ditch Daylight Saving Time comes around every year. Adel Ahmed reports.

Alberta is out of Daylight Saving Time (DST), having gained an hour on Sunday, but how do people feel about the process?

When it's time to "fall back" and gain an extra hour early in the morning, a lot of people don't mind the time change.

"Extra hour of sleep doesn't hurt anybody," said Brendan, an Edmontonian on Sunday.

"I like it fine now, it's in the spring when we have to jump forward again that it's kind of hard," said Linda, an Edmontonian. "I work at a school and the kids are all very tired then."

There are benefits to the time change, including conserving energy in the summer by reducing the need for artificial lighting in the evening and encouraging more outdoor activity in warm weather.

DST is a divisive topic in Alberta, as a 2021 referendum proved.

The choice was whether to adopt DST year-round, or keep the time change active.

The results were 50.2 per cent of voters (536,874) preferred not to adopt year-round DST.

In 2021, experts warned that while getting rid of the time change would be beneficial, adopting year-round DST would be a bad idea.

"We're so far north we have really short days, which means we're going to feel any adverse effects of being on the wrong time even more," said University of Calgary circadian rhythm expert, Dr. Michael Antle.

"It really messes up my sleep cycle, my dog's sleep cycle," said Mary, an Edmontonian.

"I work shift work, so for me to even adjust to shift work is hard, and then when they start switching time around, it makes it harder."

It's not just Albertans who might be fed up with changing the clocks, a change.org petition to the federal government to abolish DST currently has more than 88,000 signatures.

The time change is known to have negative effects on people, according to Anita Layton, a biology and mathematics professor at the University of Waterloo.

"Even though we don’t hear it tick, all of us have an internal clock," Layton told CTV News. "It tells you when you should wake up, why you should eat, when you should go to bed. And then light is a very important regulator of that circadian rhythm.

"So when you change the amount of light exposure that you're getting, you throw everything off."

Layton adds that the number of heart attacks also increases when the time changes in the spring.

In the days following the time change, traffic accidents and workplace injuries also tend to increase, according to research from the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety.

Ontario and B.C. currently have legislation in place to scrap the time change, but other jurisdictions need to also eliminate DST before those provinces can act.

Quebec is currently gauging interest in residents' opinions on the time change, but is not committing to any legislation at the moment.

Saskatchewan and Yukon do not have DST.

Currently, Alberta is set to go back to DST on March 9 next year.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Adel Ahmed and CTV News Kitchener's Spencer Turcotte