Quebec government considers abolishing time change, announces consultations

MONTREAL — The Quebec government wants to hear Quebecers’ thoughts about scrapping the twice-yearly time change, but it isn’t promising to act on them.

Justice Minister Simon Jolin-Barrette on Tuesday launched a public consultation on the time change, and said the government could subsequently table legislation to abolish the decades-old and much-maligned tradition.

“The time has come to question the relevance and the future of the time change in Quebec,” he told reporters in Quebec City. Jolin-Barrette said changing the clocks has “important impacts on the lives of Quebecers,” and can cause a lack of concentration, irritability and fatigue, especially in children and teenagers.

However, he didn’t commit to any timeline for legislation, and didn’t say whether the government would prefer to stick with winter or summer time year-round. The public consultation, in the form of an online questionnaire, will last until Dec. 1.

Sleep experts have long called for the time change to be abolished. Roger Godbout, a clinical psychologist and emeritus professor at the Université de Montréal, said the changing of the clocks is linked to more traffic accidents and a higher risk of stroke.

“It’s a nuisance and it causes negative impacts on the mental health and physical health of Canadians, so we should stop,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

He believes Quebec should adopt year-round standard time, or winter time, which would mean earlier sunrises and sunsets through the rest of the year. The change would mean that at the summer solstice in Montreal, for example, the sun would rise around 4 a.m. and set around 7:45 p.m.

Godbout said standard time, when the sun reaches its highest point at noon, is better aligned with people’s natural circadian rhythm. “In terms of sleep, every scientific and clinical association… throughout the world agrees that the normal standard time should be used throughout,” he said.

On the other hand, there’s a business case for adopting permanent daylight time, since people are more likely to stay out later to shop or eat when it’s still light out. In 2020, Yukon opted for permanent daylight time, meaning the sun doesn’t set until 11:30 p.m. at the summer solstice in the capital of Whitehorse. Conversely, it doesn’t rise until 11 a.m. on Dec. 21.

That same year, Ontario passed legislation to permanently remain on daylight time, but the bill was contingent on Quebec and New York state also making the move. On Tuesday, Jolin-Barrette said Quebec has “full autonomy” on the matter and could move independently, but added the government will take the positions of its neighbours into account.

In 2022, the U.S. Senate passed legislation that would have made daylight time permanent, but the bill was stymied in part by debate over whether it would be better to stick to standard time.

Peter Graefe, an associate professor of political science at McMaster University, said most jurisdictions are hesitant to move on the time change because there’s “a presumed economic cost that comes with being the outlier.” He pointed to possible confusion around supply chain management and the opening and closing times of stock exchanges.

He said Quebec may be keener to launch a discussion about scrapping the time change than to actually do it. “Why does the Quebec government announce this now?” he said. “I presume it may have something to do with the not-great poll numbers that the government has, and this is a way that it looks like it’s listening to people and responding to them in a way that probably has little cost.”

Daylight time was initially adopted during the First World War, when it was used to increase wartime production by extending evening daylight hours. It became permanent after the Second World War. In 1974, the U.S. Congress voted to move to year-round daylight time, but changed course after people complained about having to go to school and work in the dark during the winter.

Most Canadians are set to turn their clocks back an hour early on the morning of Nov. 3, and will set them forward again on March 9, 2025. Saskatchewan and the Yukon don’t change their clocks, and neither does a small region of eastern Quebec, which remains on Atlantic standard time year-round.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2024.

Maura Forrest, The Canadian Press