Albertans will find sticking with daylight time exhausting, warns sleep expert

A sleep expert is warning that switching to daylight time year-round could result in Albertans sleeping less.

"Do we want to go to work and school an hour earlier in the winter? Because that's essentially the choice we're making," said Michael Antle, a professor at the University of Calgary who studies how time and daylight impacts people's physical and mental health.

He said while studies show later sunsets result in a later bedtime, people still get up and go to work at the same time. Studies have linked less sleep to an increased risk for diabetes, heart attack and stroke. 

At municipal polls this fall will be a referendum on whether the province should stay on summer hours by switching to daylight time permanently. The move would eliminate the need to change clocks twice a year. 

Ditching the practice appears to be extremely popular — a government survey in 2019 found nine out of 10 Albertans wanted to stick with one time. 

However, Antle said most Albertans are probably unaware of the consequences of not falling back an hour in the fall. 

"You're going to have workers who are more likely to hurt themselves on the job and you're going to have workers who are going to be less productive," he said during an interview on CBC's Radio Active Tuesday.

Antle said the late sunrise in the winter will see in more people commuting to work in the dark, which is a more dangerous time to do so.

If daylight time is adopted year round, sunrise in Edmonton during December will be after 9:30 a.m. and in Grande Prairie it will be almost 10:30 a.m.

"Which is really, really late. And our bodies don't want to be up that early and get behind the wheel of a car and drive to work," he said.

"We're not going to be terribly productive."

The shift could also impact the economy. Antle argues some businesses — like ski hills — might even have a shorter work day due to the later sunrise.

If anything, Antle said, it would be better to stick with Standard time because solar noon — the moment the sun reaches its highest point in the sky — and noon would be closer together. 

Daylight saving around the world

Other parts of Canada are also considering an end to clock changes, including B.C. and Ontario. 

Yukon made the permanent shift in 2020 and Saskatchewan largely abandoned the practice in 1966. 

Daylight time was brought into Alberta after a public vote in a 1971 plebiscite. Port Arthur, Ont. was actually the first municipality in the world to enact daylight time in 1908 in order to allow people to have more time for sports after work.

Germany was the first country to adopt the practice in 1916. The rationale at the time was to minimize the use of electricity to save fuel during the First World War. 

Approximately 70 countries still change their clocks twice a year.