British Columbia’s move to stay permanently on daylight saving time could cause scheduling errors as much of North America turns clocks back on Sunday.
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British Columbia’s decision to remain on daylight saving time permanently has prompted warnings from information technology experts about potential issues for calendars, deliveries, and medical appointments around the Sunday clock change.
When much of North America turns clocks back one hour on Sunday, most of B.C. will instead adopt Pacific Time, or PCT.
The Vancouver Coastal and Island health authorities said patients should double check their appointments because they may have shifted by one hour.
The University of Victoria and the University of B.C. said staff meetings scheduled on or after Sunday could show the wrong time, especially if they were booked before updates to calendar systems.
While major technology companies including Microsoft and Google have updated their software to account for the shift, the updates may not automatically correct calendar appointments created before the changes, potentially requiring users to adjust some events manually.
M3 Sweatt, a retired Microsoft executive, said in an email that practical and operational challenges could follow the transition, particularly for travellers and businesses working between Washington state and B.C.
He said international ferry and train passengers may see differences in schedules and tickets, adding that “when travelling by train, a four-hour trip will be a three-hour trip southbound but a five-hour trip northbound.”
Sweatt said Teams and Outlook events may not migrate automatically and encouraged people to double check recurring meeting times.
Microsoft released Windows updates accounting for B.C.’s shift, but said some Microsoft 365 services, including Outlook and Teams, would require manual time changes.
Google said in a statement that calendar events created in certain time zones may appear one hour late on and after Sunday, and asked users to enable software updates because some products such as Android phones and smartwatches may still fall back by one hour.
Darren Coleman, CEO of B.C.-based IT firm Coleman Technologies, said he expects widespread calendar issues even after Sunday.
Coleman said meetings created in scheduling software are stored with the time zone in place when they were created, and that patches cannot automatically correct invites that hard-code the previous time zone.
He added that systems used for daily operations could also be affected, including door access systems, security cameras, and some point-of-sale setups.
“I think it’s a much bigger issue than most people recognize,” Coleman said.
Luke Bell, a reactive service manager for Victoria-based IT provider Smart Dolphins, said it has been difficult to prepare clients with older software or services that cannot update to the new time zone.
“We won’t know until the change happens,” Bell said.
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