Spring forward, stuck in time

By Lethbridge Herald on March 7, 2026.

Morning Joe- Joe Manio Lethbridge Herald

Every March we participate in an unwanted archaic ritual. Clocks leap forward, sleep schedules implode and coffee sales spike. “Spring Forward” arrives like a bureaucratic prank…leaving parents negotiating with overtired children, shift workers recalculating paycheques and the rest of us wondering why we’re still pretending this charade makes sense.

There’s an old joke about daylight saving time (DST) that goes, when a Tribal Elder told about DST, he responded: “Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom and have a longer blanket.” 

It’s blunt, but mathematically undeniable. Moving an hour of daylight doesn’t create more daylight. It just relocates it.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has pledged to scrap DST, echoing signals from Vancouver that they too would prefer year-round consistency if neighbouring jurisdictions align. The rhetoric sounds familiar…so does the skepticism and deja vu from Albertans.

The clock-changing experiment originated during the First World War with a simple premise: shift an hour of daylight into the evening to save fuel. Germany adopted daylight saving in 1916. Britain, Canada and others followed.

It resurfaced during the energy crises of the 1970s and stuck; less because it clearly works today, critics argue, but more because retiring it is politically awkward.

Alberta nearly ended the charade in 2021 with a referendum asking voters whether to adopt permanent DST. The question itself, however, was widely criticized as confusingly-worded, forcing voters to parse whether a “yes” meant ending the clock change or locking in summer hours year-round. 

The referendum failed by a razor-thin margin—about 50.2 per cent opposed. The biannual ritual survived by roughly the population of a small town. 

The debate didn’t disappear; it just hit snooze. Meanwhile DST supporters continue recycling familiar arguments.

Energy savings top the list, despite modern studies suggesting minimal reductions often offset by increased heating and air conditioning use. In an era of LED bulbs and home offices the coal-saving logic feels antique.

Public safety is another claim. Lighter evenings may reduce some crime but the flip side is darker mornings; not ideal for schoolchildren or commuters navigating icy Alberta roads before sunrise.

Then there’s economics… retailers and recreation industries like brighter evenings. Yet broader data is mixed because of productivity losses tied to sleep disruption; including spikes in workplace injuries and traffic collisions after “Spring Forward.”

Health researchers may be the least sentimental about DST. Losing an hour of sleep in one abrupt shift is more than a minor inconvenience. Studies have linked it to short-term increases in heart attacks and car crashes. 

“Coordination” is the final rationalization. With Alberta doing business with other provinces and U.S. states, misaligned clocks can cause confusion. Several jurisdictions, however, function well without the twice-yearly shuffle.

Saskatchewan has effectively observed year-round standard time for decades. Yukon adopted permanent daylight saving time in 2020. British Columbia passed legislation in 2019 to move to permanent DST (once the U.S. west coast followed suit).

In the U.S., Arizona, Hawaii and several territories including Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands have functioned on standard time year-round without any societal breakdown. The sun rises. Meetings start. Life goes on.

For a species that prides itself on adaptability our inability to agree on what time it is year-round is oddly revealing. The persistence of DST says less about necessity and more about our inertia and resistance to change.

In November we gain an hour…a cozy bonus. In March, we lose an hour. Humans are loss-averse and we feel subtraction more sharply than addition. “Fall Back” feels like a gift. “Spring Forward” feels like theft.

If Alberta finally ditches DST it won’t be revolutionary. It will be administrative. But it would end a century-old workaround that may have solved yesterday’s problems but in 2026 is just plain irritating.

Until then we’ll keep cutting a foot off the top of the proverbial blanket and stitching it to the bottom every March. And bleary-eyed and mildly resentful we’ll ask: “If we’re the most adaptable species on Earth, why can’t we adapt our clocks?”