For more than 50 years, Canada’s dual system of measuring things has been a source of confusion for traders, artisans, newcomers, and anyone who has been asked to weigh in pounds.
Why, for example, are outdoor temperatures measured in degrees Celsius, until you enter a pool? Why do we order our morning coffee in ounces but buy milk in liters?
Canada is officially a “metric” country, but many industries and people are working on imperial measures, adding extra costs and complexity to businesses and doing the daily chores, from buying products to ordering a drink, which is a little trickier.
- Canadians often use a mixture of metric and imperial systems for measurements. Is it time for Canada to be fully metric? Tell us what you think at ask@cbc.ca
Soon, Canada may have a new ally to combine its measures: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to announce the rebirth of the imperial system for the Queen’s Jubilee. The measure will allow stores to sell products in pounds and ounces, as well as in grams, further moving away from the UK to Europe, which uses the metric system.
“It’s crazy,” said Professor Werner Antweiler, an economist at Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia, about the proposed change in the UK.
“This is just populism. It has absolutely nothing to do with the economy. It’s detrimental to the economy. It’s detrimental to Britain’s trade interests, because most of its trade is still in the European Union,” he said. like it or not “.
A group of British shop owners known as the “Martyrs Metrics” have imperial combs in front of a London court on November 20, 2001. The men were convicted of selling products under the imperial weights system, after the Kingdom Together to enforce European regulations, which said that the metric system must take precedence. Britain is now expected to allow shopkeepers to reuse the imperial system. (Russell Boyce / Reuters)
The United States, Myanmar, and Liberia are the only countries that still use the imperial system on a day-to-day basis.
Antweiler and others, including some who work entirely in the imperial system, say that Canada should go the opposite route to the United Kingdom, leaving the imperial system and going totally metric, like most of its trading partners.
Canada’s continued use of both systems, Antweiler said, adds “an extra layer of complexity and an additional source of error and an additional source of cost, because now you have to meet the other standard.”
But a larger measure would require the purchase of all industries, from engineering and real estate to agriculture and beer, and could create new headaches for Canadian businesses with customers on the southern border.
When Canada was metric
To understand why most Canadians know their height in feet and inches but measure their travel plans in miles, one must go back to 1970. That was when the federal government launched the Metric Commission to convert the Canada from imperial to metric and to educate the public. on how to use the new system.
The Metrics Commission announced that Canadian schools would begin teaching weights and metrics in 1975. (CBC News / CBC Archives)
In 1975, weather emissions changed from Fahrenheit to Celsius. Food packaging and street signs soon changed to metric units, and by 1979, gas stations were filling tanks per liter instead of gallons.
For many industries, however, the change was voluntary. Amid rejection by them, as well as some members of the public and the United States, who abandoned their own metrification plans in the early 1980s, Canada was stuck in the limelight when it abolished the Metric Commission in 1985.
TARGET | In 1985, Canadians were still confused about the metric system:
Measuring in metrics and imperial confuses Canadians
Canada is measuring in two systems these days, and it’s getting confusing.
Today, entire industries, such as construction and other trades, still operate in the imperial system, or a mixture of both, which require a level of bilingualism in two measurement systems.
The argument for accuracy
Like most merchants, Toronto cabinetmaker Greg Moogk works almost exclusively in the imperial system, except when an architect gives him metric drawings, as is sometimes the case with high-rise construction projects, or when he buys products outside of the United States. North.
“It’s much, much, much easier to be more accurate in the metric system,” Moogk said, adding that he has received requests such as “just cut it to a hair over 1/16 inch.” as if I had an idea. what is this “.
“If we had the option of suddenly removing the imperial system, it would obviously be weird for a minute, because everyone [in the trades] should learn the metric system. But it is much easier [to use] “It’s a lot harder for someone to understand fractional math than really easy decimals, isn’t it?”
Other creators face similar challenges working between the two systems.
“The tools we use to make bedspreads [are] all in imperial terms … But in Canada, when we go shopping for fabric, we buy it in yards, not in yards, “said Karen Neary, a quilt pattern designer in Amherst, NS.
It includes both measuring systems in their patterns, so customers can find out how much fabric they need, no matter where they are.
The UK is ready to reclaim some imperial measures, which means that, like the Canadians, the British will use two systems of measurement in their daily lives. Here, a tailor from London, UK, holds a tape measure that shows inches and centimeters, measurements that Canadian artisans often have to convert. (Hannah McKay / Reuters)
“The metric is so much easier, because if someone says ‘five-eighths of a yard’ or whatever, you have to stop and think, well, what’s that?” she said.
“But I really can’t see that we’re moving to metrics completely, because all the tools, all my rules, are a quarter of an inch, everything is a quarter of an inch.”
These measures become even more confusing when you consider beer, which is measured differently depending on whether you buy it canned or tap. A tall can contains 473 ml (the equivalent of 16 oz, or a US pint), but go to a bar and order a pint and you’ll get 20 oz (an imperial pint).
For those in the beer industry, switching between these measures is “second nature,” said Kyra Dietsch, marketing manager at Muskoka Brewery in Bracebridge, Ont.
“We walk a line between the two and end up using them so interchangeably that we don’t even realize … When I walk into a restaurant, I order in ounces; when I’m looking at the cans, I mean them like a thousand. It also depends on the format “.
Is it time for a change?
Switching between the two is easier in some industries than in others. It could be as simple as changing ounces per milliliter on a coffee shop menu, labeling wood in centimeters, or printing Celsius measurements on oven knobs.
“I would say 80 percent of the history of metrification is just the will to put different labels on things, and basically to get people to use the international standard,” Antweiler said.
Construction and other trades are among the Canadian industries that work primarily in the imperial system, largely due to American influence. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
But some industries would need to take additional steps, such as recycling workers such as engineers and architects, and companies may have to change their manufacturing lines or other operations to adapt, depending on the countries where their customers are located.
Antweiler believes a total change would only be possible if the federal government requested it, and is unlikely to happen.
In a statement to CBC News, a spokesman for Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada said the government “supports and encourages the use of metric units, but understands that some Canadians are more comfortable with the imperial system. therefore, the use of both measurement systems is permitted in trade. “
Despite all the confusion in the Canadian measurement system, it is a source of hope for those who can only dream of living in a country where things are measured in meters and liters, such as Don Hillger, president of the Metric Association of States United, which has been underway. in resistance for more than 100 years as they pressured the U.S. to adopt the metric system.
“I even have relatives who say, ‘Please don’t do this, don’t promote [metrication]“Until they die, because they don’t want to learn metrics,” Hillger said.
Proponents of the metric system say it is time for Canada to stop using the Imperial, such as measuring its height or short distances in feet and inches. Here, seats are spaced out (in inches) for an event in Three Rivers, PEI, March 17, 2021. (Jane Robertson / CBC)
He says he hears a lot of younger people think that “it’s ridiculous that the United States is the main resistance.” But it’s not clear when, or if, his country could join the rest of the world in metrics.
“You have to have more people asking for it before it takes place in the United States. And I don’t think we’re at that point,” he said. But he added: “I think it would help if Canada changed.”