On January 1, 1975, Canada converted its measurement system from the Imperial (as used throughout the British Empire) to the SI (a.k.a. ''metric''). Commerce is conducted strictly with SI, while Imperial is still used on occasion in informal situations or on shop signs to give helpful equivalents for older generations.
The voluminous trade between the U.S.A. and Canada nevertheless still remains based upon a mix of SI and U.S. standards. On the Canadian side of the border leading into Canada, signs often remind U.S. drivers of the equivalent road speeds since speedometers in modern U.S. market cars have the miles-per-hour figure predominant unless updated by the driver when crossing.
SI is, of course, used throughout U.S. science-based industries and services, but rarely given by popular U.S. news sources, in U.S. recipes, or in U.S. weather reports. In Canada, SI is predominant in all of the above. Canadians chuckle when the Celsius temperatures given by U.S. weather reporters are given as ''Centigrade''.
retrac 20 days ago [-]
The popular use of feet, inches, pounds, and a few of the other old units does persist in parallel to SI. As the joke goes, only in Canada can a river be 200 km long and 2 ft wide.
cf100clunk 20 days ago [-]
Indeed, especially in building materials. Even though common retail softwood lumber wall studs have not been based on a 2" parameter in many decades (they're actually 1.5 by 3.5") and despite the change to the metric system, they are still commonly called two-by-fours, two-by-sixes, etc.
Liquid measurements are a very different story. Given the changeover to litres at the gas pump that affected millions of consumers across generations, and given the closeness of 1 litre to 1 Imperial quart, the use of SI with liquids is pretty well complete other than in cooking recipes that usually still use teaspoons and tablespoons instead of millilitres, or grams for solids.
As someone who travels in both countries, I don't need to look at a retail grocery item's fine print to tell in which of the 2 countries I'd bought it when a quick look at the labeled mass/weight or volume informs me instantly.
HappySweeney 19 days ago [-]
The deep economic integration with the US has lead us to use this [0] insane flowchart to determine which units to use in which situation. It appears to be a joke at first, but it's accurate.
The voluminous trade between the U.S.A. and Canada nevertheless still remains based upon a mix of SI and U.S. standards. On the Canadian side of the border leading into Canada, signs often remind U.S. drivers of the equivalent road speeds since speedometers in modern U.S. market cars have the miles-per-hour figure predominant unless updated by the driver when crossing.
SI is, of course, used throughout U.S. science-based industries and services, but rarely given by popular U.S. news sources, in U.S. recipes, or in U.S. weather reports. In Canada, SI is predominant in all of the above. Canadians chuckle when the Celsius temperatures given by U.S. weather reporters are given as ''Centigrade''.
Liquid measurements are a very different story. Given the changeover to litres at the gas pump that affected millions of consumers across generations, and given the closeness of 1 litre to 1 Imperial quart, the use of SI with liquids is pretty well complete other than in cooking recipes that usually still use teaspoons and tablespoons instead of millilitres, or grams for solids.
As someone who travels in both countries, I don't need to look at a retail grocery item's fine print to tell in which of the 2 countries I'd bought it when a quick look at the labeled mass/weight or volume informs me instantly.
[0] https://images.app.goo.gl/kUpkGubsWXe9ShP19