Daylight saving: should it stay or should it go?

Saskatchewan is the only province that doesn't follow daylight saving, but that might be changing soon. Petitions have been circulating that ask to get rid of daylight saving all together in Canada.

Jessa Gamble, a science journalist based in Ottawa, said that the practice might actually be outdated.  

"When it started in 1916, it was noticed that in temperate zones people tended to not get their full complement of sunlight, particularly in the summer months," said Gamble.  

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In the summer, people would typically wake up after dawn, and changing time an hour back was an attempt to shift. That is, an attempt to shift people into alignment with the sun, and also to save money on energy bills. 

It's not clear why Saskatchewan has never followed daylight saving, but Gamble said that she's heard it was because of cow milk production being disturbed. 

But the idea of change hasn't always been easily accepted. 

"I think it's always been controversial, and there has never been universal take-up of ths idea," Gamble said. 

"Part of the reason now is these supposed cost savings don't materialize, because our main electricity cost is not lighting but air conditioning in the summer," Gamble said. 

There have even been proposals as extreme as putting the entire world on one time zone.

According to Gamble, the association that we have with time would change entirely if that were the case, and it would change the culture of how things are done.

It would mean taking the number on the clock as nothing more than just a number.