You probably noticed evenings arrive quite a bit earlier and are much cooler than even just a few weeks ago in Ontario.
This might have you thinking about fall and when daylight saving time ends.
This year, fall officially begins on Monday, Sept. 22.
When does daylight saving time end in Ontario in 2025?
The fall back on time happens on Sunday, Nov. 2 — that’s when daylight saving time ends and we return to standard time as we roll the clocks back one hour and gain an extra hour of sleep.
Daylight saving time ends on the first Sunday of November, so a date of Nov. 2 is almost as early as it gets to return to standard time.
The push to end daylight saving time
There’s been some chatter over the years about scrapping the practice of daylight saving time, though nothing particularly significant in the past year or so to raise one’s hopes.
Ontario passed a law back in 2020 to stop observing daylight saving time; however, nothing has happened with that because the Ontario plan is dependent on Quebec and New York state also scrapping the practice.
In 2024, Quebec launched public consultations to ask its residents what they think of daylight saving time, though there was no promise of government acting on any public recommendations.
A petition on change.org, which has received more than 89,000 signatures, is asking the Canadian government, Ontario Premier Doug Ford and various government leaders to stop the daylight saving time practice and to instead have a permanent standard time.
DST not observed in some Canadian provinces
There are parts of Canada that don’t observe daylight saving time. Saskatchewan and Yukon don’t, and there are a few communities in several provinces that don’t either, including some in northwestern Ontario.
According to timeanddate.com, fewer than 40 per cent of the world’s countries use daylight saving time. At one point, more than 140 countries observed daylight saving time, but less than half of them continue to do so today.
Also, not all countries make the time change on the same dates. Canada’s spring-forward and fall-back dates coincide with those of the United States.
History of daylight saving time in Canada
Canada, as a nation, first began using daylight saving time in 1918 during the First World War. Canada, the United States and much of Europe picked up the practice shortly after the Germans started it.
The German government needed ways to conserve energy for battle and needed its citizens to reduce the use of electric light and conserve fossil fuels, according to the University of Canada West. The idea was that by pushing clocks forward by an hour in the spring, it gave people more daylight hours during working hours and then people would also use less energy to light their homes.
In Canada, the idea was that daylight saving time could help increase production during the war.
Canada dropped the practice after the end of the First World War, but then brought it back during the Second World War.
While Canada as a nation started utilizing daylight saving time in 1918, the first instance of it happening in Canada is said to have happened in 1908, well before the war.
According to timeanddate.com, Port Arthur, now part of Thunder Bay, turned its clocks forward by an hour on July 1, 1908, and turned it back on Sept. 1, 1908, but the community did not continue the practice in successive years.
