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Should Barrie Lead the Charge to End Daylight Savings in Ontario?

Published March 4, 2026

Orillia had a hand in bringing Daylight Saving Time to Canada at the beginning; should Barrie bring its reckoning?

According to the ridiculously long Wikipedia page, we've been changing time since ancient societies, but in 1908, Port Arthur and Fort William (which would later merge to become Thunder Bay) implemented the time change locally, followed by Orillia in 1911. The first nationwide implication goes to the Germans.

Quick Debunk

Daylight Saving Time was introduced to help farmers. Yes, it did benefit the farmers, and it was more about conserving electricity as we entered World War I and faced shortages across every industry.

The BC Towns that started The End

In the early 70's, two northern British Columbia towns, Dawson Creek and Forst St John, voted to end DST and remain permanently on Mountain Standard Time out of convenience, choosing consistency over changing schedules. The rub with this is that when people travel to the area once a year, they need to account for an hour difference for appointments, shows, and other time-based activities.

It may have taken 50 years, but British Columbia announced it will spring forward one more time.

What is stopping Ontario?

Despite people who know about this kinda stuff telling us that time changes aren't good for us, in 2020 Ontario announced it was waiting for 2 more to get on board. Quebec and New York. This is to ensure that we are on the same time as many of our economic partners and neighbours.

What can we do?

Well, just come together and say we'd like to opt out.

Other Ontario communities, like Atikokan, Pickle Lake, and New Osnaburgh, have chosen not to observe the biannual time change, but all have populations under 3000 people. So Barrie's 147,000 residents deciding to end the practice would be hard to ignore.

Using the emojis below, should we start the petition now?

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