'Stop the time change,' say B.C. petitioners

A pair of impassioned B.C. friends are petitioning the provincial government to stop the twice-annual time change and keep the province on Daylight Savings Time all year round.

Tara Holmes and Bob Dieno say there are plenty of health and safety reasons to scrap the practice of moving the clocks back and forth an hour every fall and spring.

• Read the petition here
• STOP the Time Change Facebook community 

But that's not to say the two don't have their own personal reasons for taking up the cause. 

"When you say we gain an hour of sleep, I laugh, because for people who have sleep disorders, that's really not the case," said Holmes, who has problems "getting to sleep and staying asleep at the best of times."

• Sleep disorders will affect 40% of Canadians
• Daylight Saving Time 2015: Coping with the snooze you lose

Dieno's strong distaste for the time change dates back to his second year in university.

"I had an exam the Monday after the time change and missed the exam," he recalls.

"Absolutely, I slept right through it," said Dieno, who, along with three other students in the same circumstance, was allowed to write the exam three days later.

Not the first time around

In 2012, Dieno pitched the B.C. Chamber of Commerce on his idea to stop changing the clocks, but was shot down on the grounds that local businesses did not want to be out of sync with Washington, Oregon, and California in the United States, he said.

This time around, he's confident he's got science on his side. 

"We've presented information on safety and facts, other than it just bothers us," Dieno said.

A 2009 study from the Journal of Applied Psychology found that that the lost hour led to more frequent and more severe injuries among miners. Researchers analyzed the number of injuries reported to the Mine Safety and Health Administration from 1983 to 2006.

On average, they found 3.6 more injuries occurred on the Mondays following the switch to Daylight Saving Time compared to other days, and 2,649 more days of work were lost as a result of those injuries — a 68 per cent increase.

In a separate 2008 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Swedish researchers found a five percent increase in heart attacks in the three days following the spring time shift.  

No need, say petitioners

"More countries in the world don't change their time than do," said Holmes, who noted the B.C. communities of Creston and Fort Nelson also don't.

She and Dieno are aiming to gather 10,000 signatures so that they can take their petition to the B.C. government and lobby for B.C. to stop switching the clocks.

"It's time for a change. It's time to stop the change," Dieno said.

To hear the audio, click the link: Kamloops man petitioning against Daylight Savings.