My experience with daylight saving time (DST) has always been one of confusion. Back and forth: do we lose an hour or gain an hour? Does that mean one less or extra hour of sleep? Honestly, I never really knew or understood. The whole idea of manipulating time that way felt oddly magical but at the same time extraordinarily bureaucratic.
For many, the switch seems to be a relic of the past.
But this whole switch did make me wonder. Where did the whole daylight saving thing come from anyways?
The concept is attributed to a couple of folks. In 1795, Benjamin Franklin wondered about the benefits of “a new system of sleeping and waking, based not on clocks, but on the sun itself,” the Smithsonian wrote. He also thought it would save people “hundreds of francs a year on candles … as artificial illumination would no longer be necessary.”
According to the University of Canada West, in 1895, New Zealand etymologist George Hudson “first proposed the idea of a two-hour time shift so [we] could have more after-work hours of sunshine in the summer.” During the First World War, various countries pushed their clocks forward to reserve resources for the war, but the practice wasn’t picked up year-round in Canada until the end of the Second World War. Fun fact: this article was also where I learned it’s actually daylight saving time, not daylight savings time like I originally thought and wrote in this article.
Does time really tell?
So, who really knows what the origin is. But the point is, folks notice that daylight changes with the seasons. According to the BBC, some researchers in places like Spain “found a 30% increase in fatal traffic accidents on the day clocks sprang forwards” and a 16 per cent increase on the days clocks fell backwards. An older study in 2009 found nearly a “6% increase in injuries on the Monday after clocks sprang forward.”
Sleepy accidents aside, John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests there may even be health related consequences to going back and forth. These include increases in consequences related to sleep deprivation including “cardiovascular health, increases in diabetes, poorer mental health, [and] lower cognitive performance.”
There may be other benefits with keeping the clocks as they are. A common one I’ve heard cited revolves around crime. A 2015 study showed that “robbery rates decrease by an average of 51% during the hour of sunset following the shift to DST in the spring,” which suggests “changes are due to ambient light rather than other factors.”
It remains to be seen how this shift will affect us. Will we see more or less crime? Will we feel rested?
Besides Alberta, there are many other provinces and territories who have also decided to do away with it including B.C., Manitoba, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories and Yukon. Other provinces and territories may make the switch in the future, with Quebec planning to join the bandwagon too. For many, the switch seems to be a relic of the past.
The politics behind time itself
So, without further ado, it is my honour to welcome you to Alberta Standard Time! (I know…something about the name makes my skin crawl).
In 2021, Albertans voted in a referendum on adopting year-round DST, and 50.2 per cent of electors said no.
…Wait a second.
You read that right: voters voted against abolishing DST, and our premier disregarded us and proceeded with her own agenda. I’m sure that’s an auspicious precedent that won’t have any further consequences relating to any other votes that have happened recently in Alberta.
Oh, what’s that? The United Conservative Party is still pursuing their own dental and drug plans, even though voters said no in the recent referendum? How surprising.
It kind of makes me think. What is the point of voting for stuff like this if our politicians are just going to do whatever they want anyways? And given the state of the world, why am I not surprised?
But I digress.
It remains to be seen how this shift will affect us. Will we see more or less crime? Will we feel rested? My take: I think the biggest way the DST change affects me is that I won’t have to go through the adjustment period where my dog wakes me up at six in the morning.
Feature image by Damary Chavez
This article was originally published in our Nov. 4 print issue. Read it online here.
