Disclaimer: This article is published under the Charlatan’s satire section, the Partisan. All quotes have been fabricated.
“I swear to God, if you motherfuckers don’t do something about this shit, we’re going to have some serious issues!”
This was the line repeatedly screamed by 54-year-old Ottawa resident Tristan Timchare while protesting on Parliament Hill this week. So far, he’s spent 74 of the past 76 days of 2021 advocating for the elimination of daylight time.
However, rather than highlighting some of the same health and safety issues other anti-daylight time advocates point to as reasons for ending the tradition, Timchare’s reason for protesting the act of manually changing our clocks is a little more personal.
“It’s just really fucking annoying,” he said.
“The fact that I physically have to change the time of every single one of my clocks—all the ones that aren’t connected to the internet, at least—irritates me to no end,” Timchare added.
“If I see one more suburban mom share some stupid fucking minions meme saying ‘Spring Forward!’ on my Facebook feed, I’m going to shit my pants in front of Centre Block for literally everyone to see.”
Reremy Joberts, Progressive Conservative MPP for Ottawa West-Nepean and anti-daylight time advocate, said while he appreciates Timchare’s effort, he’s not happy with the message he’s sending.
“This guy is making us all look like a bunch of hacks,” he said. “There are some seriously legitimate reasons why daylight time poses a risk to Ontarians. It puts people at greater risk of mental and physical illness, as well as getting into car accidents.”
A study published in PLOS Computational Biology in June 2020 found that residents of countries that participate in daylight time are at an elevated risk of 10 per cent of developing cardiovascular and immune-related diseases, injuries, and mental and behavioural disorders.
Joberts said Timchare’s activism “isn’t doing anything to help the rest of us.”
“I mean, he’s accusing Trudeau of being a member of ‘big daylight time.’” he said. “Trudeau sucks, but he’s not sleeping with the leader of an imaginary lobby.”
Elizabeth Hornberger, a random Carleton student the Charlatan hunted down for her opinion on the matter because apparently we need to have a student angle to each and every article, said she’s never really given much thought to daylight time.
However, she also said she isn’t opposed to giving it up.
“I mean, I really don’t care about it … like, at all,” she said. “The only time-telling thing I own is my phone and it just updates automatically.”
“I guess I get a little extra tired during the weeks we’re supposed to fall back or spring forward but other than that, I don’t really notice it. If we do end up getting rid of it, then that’s cool, I guess. One less thing for my iPhone to do.”
Featured graphic by Pascale Malenfant.
