SPRING HAS TO COME SOME TIME, RIGHT?
It hasn’t skipped BC yet.
Even as our temperatures linger below seasonal norms and the snow keeps piling up, we have to believe spring will eventually visit us, and with it comes the annual time change.
It has been 100 years since we began this practice, and just a few weeks ago, BC Liberal MLA Linda Larsen raised the issue in the provincial legislature.
She cited a petition that began with Tara Holmes and Bob Dieno here in Kamloops, and has gathered more than 25,000 signatures.
The Stop the Time Change campaign says the loss of sleep, especially in the spring when we lose an hour, leads to more auto collisions and heart attacks.
It’s worth noting that the auto collision phenomenon evens out in the fall, when theoretically we’re all getting an extra hour of sleep and crashes decrease.
Wayne Stevens of Kamloops has the counter argument.
He says the biggest problem with staying on daylight time all year would be for children going to school in the morning in the dead of winter.
If the sun only rises at 8:30 a.m., Wayne says kids walking to school will be in greater danger of getting hit by cars.
He also says it’s important that, if there’s a change in policy, the entire west coast changes at the same time.
This is perhaps the most compelling argument in this debate.
Having no idea what time it is from month to month and from province to province or state to state presents a host of major problems.
Whatever it decides, the BC government should not act on its own.
We already have one rogue province in Saskatchewan, and introducing another one would cause years of confusion for the rest of the country.
In making a decision on the time change, we have to acknowledge how inter-connected all aspects of our lives are with the rest of the country and the rest of the world.
BC can’t go it alone.
Any course of action, whether it’s to stay on Standard Time all year long, stay on Daylight Saving Time all year long, or not do anything at all, should be in lock-step with the rest of Canada at least, and hopefully with the United States as well.
In other words, Holmes and Dieno have a lot further to go than a 25,000-name petition
