BC opts for permanent daylight saving time - but is that wise?

British Columbia is that brave Canadian province willing to put its money where its mouth is and do away with those tedious biannual clock changes. 

Several other provinces have been talking about it for years, but BC is actually making it happen. This comes after a "public engagement" (actually involving just 5% of the population) voted overwhelmingly (93%!) to adopt year-round daylight saving time.

It seems clear that few people really want the hassle of clock changes every six or eight months, but why choose daylight saving time (DST) not standard time (ST)? 

It's argued that people want longer, lighter evenings in the winter, and even that it will increase winter tourism, which seems like a bit of a stretch. 

Except BC's public consultations didn't even offer the option of permanent ST, only DST, so it's not known which option the populace would actually prefer. There's certainly a vocal contingent (minority? majority? who knows?) that would prefer to see ST become the year-round permanent time, and most health experts argue that, from a health and safety point of view, standard time, not daylight saving time, is much preferable.

It's further argued by BC that DST would align better with neighbouring states Washington, Oregon and California, all of which also WANT to switch to year-round DST. But states require federal buy-in before they can make such a change - Donald Trump's personal seal of approval? Like he's going to offer California and Oregon anything they might want! - so BC is now out of sync with those states in the winter, at least for the foreseeable future. 

It's interesting that BC is more concerned with aligning with Western US states than with its eastern neighbour, Alberta. Alberta too is considering changing to year-round time, although the last referendum, in 2021, narrowly voted against it. Further to the east, Saskatchewan is already on permanent time - and has been since 1966! - but they chose ST, not DST, just to confuse things.

It will be interesting to see whether BC's unilateral decision opens the floodgates on clock-changing in Canada. Whether it's the "right" decision or not remains to be seen - I'm sure there's an army of chronologists, health researchers and statisticians out there monitoring its every move.