Of course, it is perfectly fine to prefer one time or another. But I do not find the claims of health and safety impacts very convincing, given that many places are already shifted today.
Up to a certain point, countries adapt. For example, Germany and France are in the same timezone, but their schedule is shifted. This can be easily seen when looking at the TV schedules. In Germany, evening TV starts at 20:15 (the start of movies, ...). In France it's more like 21:00. When I lived there it was 20:50, but TF1 now seems to start at 21:05.
German TV: https://www.zdf.de/live-tv
French TV: https://www.programme-tv.net/programme/chaine/programme-tf1-...
Similarly, schools and kindergardens are usually not at the same time.
This local shifting works more or less, but can't be stretched too far. Especially multinational companies have expectations that workers come in at certain times. This is the problem that Spain faces. (I couldn't easily check by how much Spanish are shifted as Spanish TV schedules don't seem to coordinated like in France or Germany).
Spain is certainly ahead by a lot, but the 2:30 is for Galicia which is the westernmost tip of Spain (which is on the same longitude as Portugal, which is in a different time Zone).
For most of Spain it’s less, tough still a lot.
Spain is shifted pretty far, but some places are even further offset. Large parts of Russia and China, but also Alaska and Argentina.
Also, since the OP concerns Canada, worth noting that the map shows Canada being more shifted than the US, which I didn’t expect.
[1] https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-wrong-is-your-time-zone-15285708...
The current daylight saving time standard, where we switch time twice a year by an hour, is not meaningless in the same way because schedules are "sticky" on sub-6-month timescales; a business keeps opening at 9am both before and after the clocks change in the Fall.
And the rest of culture more or less follows that one start time.
I suspect there's at least some adjustment, which indeed could negate health effects even if they existed (provided the operational adjustment exactly equals their time offset). OTOH If adjustment is incomplete or there's some numerical attachment (universal preference to start at specific hours), then effects could be a possibility.
I live in Eastern Portugal, where there’s no siesta, but then again we’re on GMT here, which is better aligned to the sidereal day.
That only holds true in all-else-being-equal situations. Or equal enough - I don't know if you can apply this to Paris and Berlin.
It seems simpler to me to enforce a specific time after sunrise that all institutions must create a break for children, office workers, etc to go outside.
[_]Other children told me they copied their parents pattern, to sleep after midnight awake before 7. I think they were copying insomnia.
Edit, downvotes: So time zone implementations from documented fascists are a perfect defence of new changes because we aren't actually willing to discuss their possible negative affects on entire nations?