Missed surgeries, late deliveries and muddled meeting times are among the issues that could arise as a result of British Columbia’s decision to stay permanently on daylight saving time, information technology experts have cautioned.
When much of North America turns clocks back one hour on Sunday, most of B.C. will instead adopt Pacific Time, or PCT, leading organizations that rely on scheduling software to warn employees of potential issues as the province adjusts.
The Vancouver Coastal and Island health authorities have said patients should double check their appointments, as they may have shifted by one hour.
The University of Victoria and University of B.C. have 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 B.C.’s new time zone, calendar appointments created before the updates may need to be changed manually.
M3 Sweatt, a retired Microsoft executive, said he expects practical and operational challenges, especially for travellers and businesses working between Washington state and B.C.
“They’ll need to account for the time differences when doing something as simple as moving across the border, scheduling a meeting over the phone, more planning day-to-day items on their calendar,” he said in an email.
“International ferry and train passengers will see differences in schedules and tickets: when travelling by train, a four-hour trip will be a three-hour trip southbound but a five-hour trip northbound.”
Teams and Outlook events may not migrate automatically, and people should double check the times of recurring meetings, he added.
Microsoft released Windows updates that account for the shift, but noted some Microsoft 365 services, such as Outlook and Teams, would require manual time changes.
A statement from Google said calendar events created in certain time zones may appear one hour late on and after Sunday.
The tech giant has asked users to enable software updates since 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 calendar issues will be widespread even after Sunday.
“I think it’s a much bigger issue than most people recognize,” he said.
Coleman said meetings created in scheduling software will be stored with the time zone in place when they were created.
“Not only do we have to make sure that the patches are out so that the computer realizes that there’s a new time zone, we still can’t do anything about the calendar invites that have the previous time zone hard-coded into them,” he said.
Coleman said one of his employees commutes from Washington state to B.C., putting him in different time zones at the start and end of his work day.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which manages the codes that allow software to automatically calculate local time, has updated its time zone database to reflect the switch to permanent daylight time in B.C., Alberta, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.
But while modern systems update their clocks and scheduling software through automatic updates, many older ones can’t do the same, Coleman said.
Door access systems, security cameras and some point-of-sale systems may also be affected, he added.
“Your employees may not be able to get into your office building if the clocks don’t update. The security cameras may be off. They may be missing meetings,” he said.
Luke Bell, reactive service manager for Victoria-based IT service provider Smart Dolphins, said it has been chaotic trying to make sure clients are prepared.
“Some businesses have really old services or software that they use and they don’t have the means to update to new time zones,” he said. “So there will be some friction potentially. We won’t know until the change happens.”
