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The practice can also be called “fall back” as clocks fall back by an hour, whereas in the spring we “spring forward” on time.

The general idea of adjusting time twice a year is to allow for better use of natural light, both in winter and summer. However, there’s been a lot of chatter over the years about scrapping the practice.

Ontario passed a law back in 2020 to stop observing daylight saving time — however, nothing has happened with that because the Ontario plan is dependent on Quebec and New York state also scrapping the practice.

A  started by Irene Shone, which has received more than 87,000 signatures as of this writing, is asking the Canadian government, as well as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and several government ministers, to stop the daylight saving time practice and to instead have a permanent standard time.

There are areas of Canada that don’t observe daylight saving time, including Saskatchewan and Yukon, along with a few communities in several provinces, including a few areas of northwestern Ontario.

According to , fewer than 40 per cent of the world’s countries use daylight saving time. The publication points out that in North America, eight countries observe DST, 11 stopped and 20 never have.

Also, not all countries make the time change on the same dates. Canada’s spring-forward and fall-back dates coincide with those of the United States.

History of daylight saving time

Canada, as a nation, first began using daylight saving time in 1918 during the First World War. Canada, the United States and much of Europe picked up the practice shortly after the Germans started it.

The German government needed ways to conserve energy for battle and needed its citizens to reduce the use of electric light and conserve fossil fuels, according to . The idea was that by pushing clocks forward by an hour in the spring, it gave people more daylight hours during working hours and then people would also use less energy to light their homes.

In Canada, the idea was that daylight saving time could help increase production during the war.

After the First World War, Canada dropped the practice, but then brought it back during the Second World War.

While Canada as a nation started utilizing daylight saving time in 1918, the first instance of it happening in Canada is said to have happened a decade earlier.

According to , Port Arthur, now Thunder Bay, turned its clocks forward by an hour on July 1, 1908, and turned it back on Sept. 1, 1908, but the community did not continue the practice in successive years.