Residents of British Columbia will change their clocks and spring forward for the last time on Sunday, March 8, 2026. The province of British Columbia has announced an official end to time changes for daylight saving, permanently adopting daylight time.
"We are done waiting," Premier David Eby announced on Monday. "British Columbia is going to change our clocks just one more time — and then never again."
Eby told reporters at the legislature that the move is being made because changing the clocks twice a year causes "all types of problems."
“Kids get up at the same time, even though the clocks changed, dogs get up at the same time, even though the clocks changed. Parents lose sleep. Kids lose sleep, and even people without kids or parents, they’re losing an hour of sleep, and they’re getting less sleep, and so what we see is more car accidents and people not feeling well, and impacts that have a huge unnecessary impact on the lives of British Columbians.”
British Columbia's new time zone will be called "Pacific Time."
The change means that residents of British Columbia will have eight months to prepare for November 1, 2026, when clocks would typically turn back one hour, but will now remain the same. Residents in certain communities in northeastern British Columbia that recognize some form of mountain time will not be affected by the change.
Eby noted the Yukon has already switched to permanent daylight time and added that he hopes neighbours will follow suit.
The announcement comes seven years after the British Columbia government passed legislation allowing it to end the twice-yearly time changes. The 2019 legislation followed a public consultation that found 93 per cent of British Columbians favoured moving to permanent “daylight time,” but over half also said they would prefer to wait until the United States followed suit.
The change means that British Columbia will share the same time as Alberta for four months of the year and be an hour behind the rest of the time.
The Yukon became the first jurisdiction in Canada to permanently switch to daylight time in 2020. Saskatchewan is also effectively on daylight time year round as it follows central standard time despite geographically residing in the mountain time zone.
As a reminder: on March 8, 2026 at 2:00 am, the clocks will officially move ahead one hour to mark the beginning of daylight saving time. Daylight saving will last until November 1, 2026 when the clocks “fall back” an hour for the majority of Canada.