Eby announces permanent move to Daylight Saving Time, end of clock changes

Published 12:28 pm Monday, March 2, 2026

B.C. is ending the practice of changing the clocks for daylight saving time, opting to stay on summer time in perpetuity.

“This decision isn’t just about clocks,” Premier David Eby said on Monday (March 2) in announcing the change. “It’s about quality of life for British Columbians.”

This means that when the clocks spring forward on the morning of March 8, they will stay that way forever. Technically, daylight saving time will not end in B.C. — it will be made permanent.

A new time zone will also be created, seven hours behind Coordinated Universal Time and called “Pacific Time.” It will no longer toggle between Pacific Standard (winter) Time and Pacific Daylight (summer) Time, staying on the summer time year-round.

While areas of B.C. currently on Pacific Standard Time will all switch their clocks on March 8 to summer time for good, areas located in the Mountain time zone will not alter their clock-changing procedures.

This will mean different things in different places because areas of northeastern B.C. already don’t change their clocks, having already opted to stay on Mountain Standard (winter) Time. This means those areas will now observe the same time as the rest of the province because B.C. is keeping Pacific Daylight (summer) Time, which is the same as Mountain Standard (winter) Time.

The Golden region and parts of the Kootenays use the same time as Alberta and do change the clocks, observing Mountain Standard Time in the winter and Mountain Daylight Time in the summer. Those areas will continue on this system, meaning they will be on the same time as B.C. in the winter, but an hour ahead in the summer.

To make things even more confusing, the Kootenay town of Creston is in the Mountain time zone, but like the northeast, it does not change its clocks, so that town will now align with the majority of B.C. all year.

This means that all of B.C. will be on the same time for the winter, with the Golden region and parts of the Kootenays (except for Creston) one hour ahead in the summer.

“During the winter from November to March, Pacific Time will match and other regions observing Mountain Standard Time,” explained Attorney General Niki Sharma.

Eby has long championed ending the biannual clock change, and the B.C. legislature passed a bill in 2019 to allow the change. At the time, the government said it would only do so in alignment with the U.S. West Coast states, so people would not be required to change their clocks when entering Washington.

But that bill allows the changes to be implemented without any further legislation either way. The B.C. government has opted to stop waiting.

This calculus began to change when U.S. President Donald Trump began his trade wars.

“The original reason for being reluctant to change to wait for the United States, given their importance as a trading partner, etc., has reduced in importance, and I think it may be important for us to go our own way,” Eby told Black Press Media in December.

Still, Eby expressed some reluctance at that time.

“I’m pretty anxious about what it would actually look like on the ground and whether people would actually like it once we had it,” he said.

Eby spoke about some benefits of the move at the Monday announcement, such as fewer traffic accidents with more light at the end of the workday, and the positive benefits for schoolchildren.

He also had a group of grade 2 and 3 students from nearby South Park Family School in Victoria appear alongside him at the announcement, turning the news into a group dance party at one point.

Business groups were not as pleased. The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade issued a statement calling the move “another cost to business.”

Board of Trade CEO Brigitte Anderson points out in a written statement that in 2019, when former premier John Horgan’s government passed the legislation, he agreed to wait for neighbouring jurisdictions to avoid economic disruption. This reversal will make it more difficult to attract and retain businesses in B.C., she says.

“The choice to change the time unilaterally will create an additional headache for businesses operating on both sides of the border,” she said.