{"id":619894,"date":"2026-04-22T00:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T00:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/619894\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T00:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T00:08:17","slug":"many-albertans-welcome-daylight-time-but-expert-warns-of-serious-health-impacts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/619894\/","title":{"rendered":"Many Albertans welcome daylight time but expert warns of serious health impacts"},"content":{"rendered":"

After years of debate, the Alberta government\u2019s decision to table legislation to get rid of the twice-a-year time change and permanently adopt daylight time is being welcomed by many Albertans.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think it just is a bit easier, you know, changing the clocks. I feel like also that first day where you\u2019re kind of thrown off from the time change, it\u2019d be nice to get rid of that,\u201d said Calgarian Camisha Rahmatian as she made her way to work during the Tuesday morning rush hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, the time change has always been really hard for me. I struggle with seasonal depression. So it\u2019s like the long hours, it\u2019s just it\u2019s not a good time. I really don\u2019t enjoy the time change. I don\u2019t think it gives us any more daylight and I think it just screws up everybody\u2019s schedule,\u201d added Calgarian Abbey Rodgers.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Alberta government confirmed it will be tabling an omnibus bill in the legislature later this week to get rid of the controversial time changes.<\/p>\n

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The decision is being made despite Albertans voting to keep the time changes in a provincial plebiscite five years ago<\/a>, by a very narrow margin \u2014 50.2 per cent to 49.8 per cent.<\/p>\n

However, the government of British Columbia\u2019s decision to get rid of the time changes<\/a> this spring, along with Saskatchewan staying on central standard time year-round, prompted Alberta to reconsider the idea<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re squished in between two provinces who no longer change their clocks,\u201d said Service Alberta Minister Dale McNally.\u00a0 \u201cSo the facts on the ground have changed, and so we have to make a decision accordingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tUniversity of Calgary professor Michael Antle, who has been studying the body\u2019s circadian rhythm for 30 years, says the decision to get rid of the twice-yearly time change will affect every part of your life.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Michael Antle, head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Calgary, has been studying the circadian rhythm<\/a> \u2014 the human body\u2019s 24-hour internal clock and how it reacts to changes in sleep, light and other changes in the environment \u2014 for 30 years.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere is acute harm in the spring when we change our clocks,\u201d he says. \u201cWe all now have to get up an hour earlier and your body doesn\u2019t want to do that. Your circadian clock has been following the sun and now you\u2019re getting up before sunrise for a few weeks and that\u2019s hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe know that there\u2019s increased rates of car accidents, on-the-job accidents, but generally people feel tired and grumpy and they don\u2019t like that time change,\u201d added Antle.<\/p>\n

He says getting rid of the time change will mean both sunset and dawn will happen later in the day.<\/p>\n

While he says that won\u2019t be a problem in the summer, it will make a difference during the winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause we live so far north, we have these really short winter days and the sun rises late and it sets early in the winters. So the more natural standard time is what people have really stuck with throughout history because we need that morning light. The body does not like getting up before dawn on those short days, and unfortunately, moving to daylight time year-round is going to push our dawn an hour later,\u201d said\u00a0 Antle.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tUniversity of Calgary researcher, Michael Antle, says getting rid of the time changes means the sun won\u2019t rise in December until about 9:30 a.m. in Calgary and 10:30 a.m. in Edmonton and even later in more northern parts of the province.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cSo in places like Calgary, the sun won\u2019t rise until 9:30 in December, and in other places in the northern or western part of the province (like) Edmonton and Grand Prairie, it\u2019ll be closer to 10 or 10:30 in the morning in December before they see the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Antle says it means many people living in the northern parts of Alberta will be going to work in the dark for about five months a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be really hard. A few places have tried it. Russia tried this in 2012, and they have about the same latitude as Canada. What they found in Russia in 2012, when they went to permanent daylight time, was an increased rate of mental illness, particularly amongst the youth. So rates of depression, seasonal depression went up. After two years of that experiment, they switched to standard time year-round and they\u2019ve been on standard time now for the last 12 years. And those rates came back down, so the mental health improved in the population,\u201d said Antle.<\/p>\n

He says it will be important for the province to monitor the impacts of the change for the next few years, and have \u201csome kind of exit strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a similar experiment in the United States in the early 1970s, Antle says the country \u201cbailed halfway through the experiment.\u201d In another three-year experiment in the United Kingdom in the 1960s, they eventually went back to changing their clocks twice a year.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tProfessor Michael Antle says the morning sun is critical to help reset the human body\u2019s circadian rhythm on a daily basis.\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tGlobal News\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Antle says the human circadian clock needs to be reset on a daily basis and sunlight is the cue that does that, which is why morning sunlight is so critical for most people.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOne of the things I\u2019m going to have a talk with here at the university is class times. The 8 a.m. courses are really hard for our students, and the 9 a.m. courses are going to be the new 8 a.m., and those 8 a.m. courses are going to feel like 7 a.m.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want our students finishing the first class before the sun comes up, so we may have to talk to the administration here about adjusting our timetable, our exam schedules,\u201d Antle added.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the government of the Northwest Territories announced it will also be getting rid of the twice-yearly time change.<\/a><\/p>\n

However, a spokesperson for the government of Ontario said Tuesday that residents of the province will continue to spring forward and fall back.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Click<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t4:31
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCircadian rhythms: what it is and how it works\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After years of debate, the Alberta government\u2019s decision to table legislation to get rid of the twice-a-year time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":619895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[231952,100486,232725,43,84,44,714,66,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-619894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta-time-change","tag-daylight-saving-time","tag-daylight-time","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-science","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}