Daylight saving time ends Sunday: Here’s what to know

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Daylight saving time ends Sunday Nov. 3, 2024.

Many Canadians welcome an additional hour of blissful weekend sleep to mark the end of daylight saving time.

The conclusion of this seasonal time change, often called “fall back,” will see the clocks roll one hour back while most Canadians are asleep on Sunday, Nov. 3.

The practice, however, has long been steeped in debate, and some provinces have recently considered abolishing it. Michael Antle, a professor at the University of Calgary, says daylight saving time ultimately leads to a bad night’s sleep.

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“Everybody’s had a (bad sleep),” Antle said. “You feel tired and horrible, but the next day you go to bed and have a good sleep.” He said daylight saving time can be more disruptive and affect sleep quality for several days by shifting the body’s circadian rhythm, which regulates the sleep-wake cycle.

“These time changes seem to linger for longer,” he said.

Antle published a review of the controversy last year in the journal Current Opinion in Pulmonary Medicine that found that safety, health and human behaviour are also altered after changes to the circadian rhythm. It can even affect how generous people are.

“Charitable donations go significantly down” during the twice-yearly daylight saving change, but particularly after the clock is set forward one hour in March, Antle said.

Author David Prerau, known as the world’s leading expert on daylight saving time, says the solution is simple: preparation.

“If you’re travelling to another time zone, you’re going to change your plans a little to take that into effect,” Prerau said. Sleep more the night before, steer clear of late nights, and if you still feel tired, he added, avoid overwhelming your morning with plans.

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“You could get rid of a lot of these circadian issues by doing these things,” he said.

However, Antle said not all negative outcomes are easily avoided.

He said research, set to be published soon, suggests a correlation between “falling back” to standard time and increased car collisions with deer.

“Deer are crepuscular animals, which means they are active at dawn and dusk,” said Antle. “When we switch back, that gives us an earlier sunset in the evenings, which coincides with the evening commute back home.”

“So (deer) dusk activity would then coincide with when the traffic is heavy. They actually see an increased rate of car accidents with deer.”

Across Canada, the daylight saving debate has long been controversial, and some parts of the country choose to avoid the practice. Saskatchewan and Yukon both remain on standard time throughout the year and don’t change their clocks.

Ontario passed a private members bill in 2020 which sought to adopt daylight saving time permanently, but only if Quebec and New York state do the same.

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British Columbia stepped in this direction, too, with a 2019 law that would make daylight time permanent, but it made it contingent on three states, Washington, Oregon and California, making the change at the same time.

Michael Mak, vice president, clinical, of the Canadian Sleep Society said his organization wants to stop the clock change, but opposes the adoption of daylight saving time throughout the year, and advocates for the application of standard time permanently.

“Standard time throughout the year allows greater exposure of natural sunlight in the morning,” Mak told National Post in a statement. This exposure “generally facilitates better mood and sleep, and better overall health,” he later wrote.

Antle, while an advocate for permanent standard time himself, said that above all, a national strategy is needed.

“We need to coordinate these decisions across the entire country,” he said.

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