Daylight saving time ends earlier this year in Canada than it did in 2024. The clocks will get turned back by an hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 2.
That’s the second-earliest date, Nov. 1 being the earliest, the time change can end. Last year, daylight saving time ended on Nov. 3. Looking forward to fall 2026, the first Sunday in November falls on Nov. 1 and in 2027 it falls on Nov. 7.
Daylight saving time started as a way to save energy and give people more daylight hours in the evening. It starts on the second Sunday of March and ends on the first Sunday in November each year.
In 2025, the clocks went forward on Sunday, March 9, at 2 a.m., and they’ll be moved forward once again in the early morning hours of March 8, 2026, when daylight saving time next begins.
While it’s not a huge inconvenience to change clocks, studies show issues associated with the time change include increased hospital admissions, car crashes and stress, according to Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
The change can disrupt natural sleeping patterns and impact cardiovascular health, mental health and lower cognitive performance.
But daylight saving time remains in place despite efforts to end it in Ontario. The Premier Doug Ford government passed the Time Amendment Act in November 2020 to make the time now called daylight saving time the standard time year-round. However, the province is waiting on Quebec and New York to pass similar legislation.
Quebec launched a public consultation on the issue last fall. And New York has established a task force on daylight saving time to study the effects of the state opting out of daylight saving time.
As of 2023, some 34 per cent of countries around the world — primarily in North America and Europe — use daylight saving time.
The concept dates back to the time of the First World War when several countries, among them the U.S., began moving the clocks forward and back during the year as a way to conserve electricity and fuel, thus reducing costs in the war effort.
Canada,Canada News,Daylight saving time clocks
