Daylight saving time changes in Ontario, Canada

Ontario has 2 listed IANA time zones. 2 observe daylight saving time changes in 2026.

Best Time to Call Ontario

Business hours in Ontario (9 AM-5 PM local time) fall at these local times elsewhere:

• Sao Paulo: 10:00 AM - 6:00 PM ( Convenient)
• Frankfurt: 3:00 PM - 11:00 PM ( Partial overlap)
• Johannesburg: 3:00 PM - 11:00 PM ( Partial overlap)
• Singapore: 9:00 PM - 5:00 AM (next day) ( Partial overlap)
• Hong Kong: 9:00 PM - 5:00 AM (next day) ( Partial overlap)
• Istanbul: 4:00 PM - 12:00 AM (next day) ( Partial overlap)
• Auckland: 2:00 AM (next day) - 10:00 AM (next day) ( Outside normal hours)

Times shown reflect current UTC offsets and may shift by up to an hour around daylight saving transitions.

Current Time in Cities of Ontario, Canada

About Time in Ontario

The World's First Daylight Saving Time

Before Germany, before Britain, before anywhere else on Earth, the twin cities of Port Arthur and Fort William, today merged into Thunder Bay, became the first place in the world to shift its clocks seasonally.

Local businessman John Hewitson convinced both city councils to pass a bylaw switching the cities from Central time to Eastern time each summer, starting May 1908, and switching back every November. Because the two cities sat almost exactly on the boundary between the Central and Eastern time zones, the trick worked perfectly: shifting to the neighboring zone in summer produced exactly the same effect as modern Daylight Saving Time, an extra hour of evening light, without inventing any new concept of time at all.

The trial was popular enough that Port Arthur made the change permanent starting in 1909, and Fort William followed in 1910. That same year, the actual boundary between the Central and Eastern time zones was redrawn more than 200 miles further west, folding the whole region permanently into Eastern time, eight years before Germany's 1916 nationwide adoption is usually credited as the start of modern Daylight Saving Time.

The Mayor Who Was Late for His Own Church

Four years later, a much smaller and far less successful experiment played out in Orillia. Town councillor and newspaper co publisher Charles Hale convinced Mayor William Sword Frost to adopt the idea locally, hoping the publicity would help brand Orillia as The Town Ahead.

Frost signed the bylaw on June 22, 1912, earning himself the nickname Daylight Bill in the process, and Orillia became one of the first towns in Canada to try the concept. The irony was almost immediate. Frost himself reportedly showed up late for church the very next morning, having forgotten about the clock change he had just approved.

Unlike Port Arthur, Orillia stood entirely alone in the experiment, with no neighboring towns adjusting alongside it. Confusion over scheduling with the rest of the region proved too much, and the town council reversed the decision after only about two weeks, ending Orillia's brief run as a daylight saving pioneer almost as quickly as it began.

A Law Ontario Passed but Has Never Used

In November 2020, the Ontario legislature unanimously passed the Time Amendment Act, Bill 214, which would move the entire province to permanent Daylight Saving Time and end the twice yearly clock change for good.

The law came with a built in condition, however: Ontario's Attorney General can only activate it once Quebec and New York State pass matching legislation of their own, so that the three heavily connected jurisdictions move together rather than falling out of sync with each other.

Years later, that condition still has not been met. Quebec has held public consultations but passed no binding law, and New York State would additionally need approval from the United States Congress before it could act at all. As a result, Ontario's own permanent time law has sat fully passed and ready since 2020, waiting on decisions made entirely outside the province.

Frequently Asked Questions