What moving to permanent daylight vs. standard time may mean for Albertans

As Alberta considers whether to follow B.C.'s lead in ending the time change, it also would have to decide which time zone to stay in. Nicole Weisberg reports.

On the heels of British Columbia’s move to switch to permanent daylight time, Alberta, now sandwiched between two provinces that do not switch the clocks, is considering doing the same.

But whether the province would make a move to permanent daylight time or permanent standard time, if any move, is still on the table.

Premier Danielle Smith herself said she would prefer going to permanent daylight time as standard time – which most of Canada is currently on until Sunday – would be too much of an adjustment year-round.

Standard time moves most Canadian clocks (save for Saskatchewan and soon, B.C.), an hour back in November, meaning less daylight in the evening hours.

By Sunday, clocks will jump forward an hour to daylight saving time, meaning more daylight in the evening but less in the early hours of the morning.

The question for many Albertans is, then, whether they’d like to have more sunlight in the morning, or more at night.

Patricia Lakin-Thomas, a biology professor at York University, said there’s “increasing evidence every year” that the switch back and forth is bad for our bodies.

“The scientific consensus now is really that standard time year-round is the best for us,” she told CTV News Edmonton on Friday. “When we talk about the potential advantages of daylight saving time, people always emphasize that we’re going to have more light in the afternoon.”

But sleep and circadian rhythm researchers like her, she said, have noted that losing an hour in the spring correlates with sleep deprivation and its side effects – lack of focus, greater risk for workplace accidents, car accidents and in long-term and more extreme cases, increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Those issues, she says, are related to built-up sleep debt, which can be felt by people who stay up later to sleep as the sun goes down and potentially lose rest.

“What we’re really talking about is a burden across the whole population. Some people are fine, they can adapt easily. I suspect that’s people who have disrupted schedules anyway, or who are on shift work and never see the sun anyway,” she said.

Factors to consider outside of health

Daniel Stern, the chief editor of Driving Vision News based in B.C. and Seattle, Washington, has the opposite opinion. Driving Vision News is a global group focused on driver vision, vehicle, lighting and overall traffic safety.

“In my opinion, the B.C. government got it all the way right,” he told CTV News Edmonton on Friday. “Step one, stop faffing with the clocks twice a year, and step two, leave it on summer time.”

His concern with a switch to permanent standard time is what he says is “pretty sturdy” research indicating a rise in pedestrian deaths during winter’s standard time jump.

“It’s not just a temporary spike where people get used to it, it stays up until the moment we switch to summer daylight time, and then it drops back down,” he said.

His concern is less to do with whether people might feel better should winter see more sunlight and more to do with safety in dark, icy road conditions or with less peripheral vision than in the daytime.

“We can’t ask all those extra dead pedestrians whether they were feeling maybe a little bit less chipper in their final moments,” he said.

“There’s a lot of things we can do to counteract seasonal depression … there’s nothing we can do aside from adopting permanent daylight time to alleviate the extra dead pedestrians.”

Cpl. Troy Savinkoff with the Alberta RCMP provided data on pedestrian collisions and deaths in jurisdictions they patrolled last year.

“From my quick review, more pedestrian collisions happen during peak traffic times, while most fatal collisions occur in the evening,” he said in an email to CTV News Edmonton.

Non-fatal accidents with pedestrians appear to peak in the summer months after work hours and then again around 11 p.m. During the winter months, those numbers are higher at 5, 6 and 7 p.m.

January 2025 saw seven fatal pedestrian collisions total, two of which were at 6 p.m.

But the highest rates of fatal pedestrian accidents were in October 2025. Of those 13 deaths, four happened in the early morning and seven happened after 7 p.m.

Whichever side Albertans are on in the debate, Lakin-Thomas said there is currently a motion before Parliament for a nationwide consultation on switching the clocks twice a year.

“Instead of people doing it piecemeal, as is happening now … hopefully before November, when the next time change happens,” she said.

Alberta last held a referendum on time change in 2021, with 50.2-per-cent of voters deciding to keep the clocks moving twice a year.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Nicole Weisberg and Craig Ellingson