Here’s why only half of Ontario is turning its clocks back this weekend

Clocks in most of Ontario are turning back one hour on Sunday, marking the end of daylight saving time, but they’ll stay put in a large chunk of the province — splitting it into two time zones.

Northwestern Ontario is scrapping the biannual time change, while the rest is keeping it

Olivia Piercey · CBC News

· Posted: Oct 31, 2026 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 15 minutes ago

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Some provinces are ending time changes. What about Ontario?

10 hours ago|

Duration

1:53

Some Ontarians will turn their clocks back one hour this weekend, while others will not. CBC's Dale Manucdoc breaks down what you need to know.

Clocks in most of Ontario are turning back one hour on Sunday, marking the end of daylight saving time, but they’ll stay put in a large chunk of the province —  splitting it into two time zones.

Northwestern Ontario is following suit with a number of western provinces and territories that have permanently switched to daylight time as a part of a major shake-up to Canadian time zones. Alberta, Manitoba, Northwest Territories and most of British Columbia are no longer changing their clocks twice a year. 

The Ontario government wants all of Ontario’s clocks to do the same. In 2020, the province passed the Time Amendment Act, which would strike down all the divisive clock changing.

But the law won’t come into effect unless Quebec and New York do the same thing. A news release from Ontario's attorney general says it’s important the three jurisdictions stay aligned to ensure synchronicity when it comes to trade, the stock market and broadcasting.

Those trading partners are also considering the change, but so far, it’s been a stalemate and no one wants to make the first move.

No advantage to changing first: professor

Patrick Baylis, an associate professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, says it is a wise choice for governments to hold off on making any time zone changes until their trading partners do.

"There's no first-mover advantage to changing time before everybody else does," Baylis said. "It just means you, sort of, sow a bit more confusion in your own area."

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Manitoba is the latest province to stop switching between daylight and standard time, following the same decision made by B.C., Alberta and the Northwest Territories over the last year or so.

Quebec is among the provinces who will be turning back clocks this weekend. But the newly elected Parti Québécois government plans to change that soon.

In a recent Facebook post, Quebec Premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said about the time change: "This is probably the last year we'll be imposing such unnecessary constraints on ourselves."

In New York, Republican Sen. Joe Griffo sponsored senate bill S3380 that would establish daylight saving time as the standard time in the state throughout the year. 

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the bill, Griffo said, but he still needs action from the senate to push it forward.

"The Congress, under the Uniform Time Act, has, ultimately, determination to tell us what time we can be on," Griffo told CBC Toronto. "You can't have 50 states doing 50 different things, which I understand and appreciate."

For now, unless the two chambers of the U.S. Congress can get on the same page and Quebec also implements the change, Ontario will be stuck with two time zones.

According to the province, Ontario’s northwestern time zone will switch from eastern to central time zone west of the 90th meridian, a north-south line of longitude that crosses northwestern Ontario.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Olivia Piercey is a journalist at CBC Toronto. She previously worked at CBC Nova Scotia and her stories have appeared in digital publications as well as on national radio broadcasts. She is most interested in stories about accessibility and technology.