Canada Question

GordyMN

Member
I know this is not tractor related. I also know that several people on this forum are Canadians.
I read an article stating Canada has made the metric system compulsory since 1975 about the time the US was going metric. Many, if not most of the
ads state food, etc. in pounds and in kilos or other appropriate comparisons. The pound amount is mainly or mostly in larger font than kilos in the
ads. In conclusion they are indicating that the general public is ignoring the kilos and would prefer to think in pounds since 1975.
I am just curious if this is true. Thanks for the replies.
GordyMN
 
No, I don't think so. Most packaging has only one unit. Lumber is still sold in Imperial measure to be compatible with existing structures. Most all farm inputs and products are sold in metric measure. My kids don't know how far a mile is or about how much a pound is. We still have not changed from Imperial time to metric time though....lol!

Ben
 
Depends on what they're selling too whom. Older folks like me (71) never took to the metric system as we were raised on imperial measure and relate to the measurements. The younger folks educated on the metric system don't know what we're talking about when we reference pounds,feet,inches,etc. The whole thing made it very complicated and frustrating for the farming community because our land was all laid out in acres and all of a sudden we got pesticide containers with instructions to spray at ml/hectare instead of gals/acre.
 
If memory is correct. Jimmy Carter's voluntarily metric conversion act or mandate changed text books but not the minds of Americans.

Proves once again, what the government is for many people are against.
 

Netric system was forced onto Canada by the Father/Step Father of the current Prime Minister via using an " Order In Council".
Rare now is the person under age 65 that knows or uses the imperial system.
I still convert metric into imperial .
 
The common place to see both measures is the grocery store for meat and fruit/veggies.
More attractive on the sign to see pork loin only 1.99/lb vs 4.39/kg, apples .99/lb vs 2.19/kg with the imperial the large print on sign.
It also works opposite for more expensive items like cold cuts at the deli counter, easier on the eyes to see 1.99/ 100g vs 9.03 / lb.

Building supplies wood/plumbing/electrical are normally referred to in imperial trade sizes, but the the plans the contractor is working from will be in metric. Ex the plan may say 100 mm sprinkler main header but at the supply warehouse he is ordering 4 in pipe.
Personally I started with the metric in grade school but grew up on the farm with older parents and work in building maintenance so I jump all over with which system and conversions depending on the situation at hand.
 
I am 60, and grew up with standard measure. The metric system was introduced when I was in grade 7, at age 11-12. Few things changed the first few years, but gradually the metric system was made mandatory legal measure for things. I started driving at 16 and bought gas at 49.9 cents/gallon in 1977. By 1979 gas was sold only by the litre, started out at ,26 cents per litre, and created a wonderful opportunity for the government of the day to raise the gas tax, because no one knew how much a litre was. They only knew the price of gas had more than doubled. Same jerk gave us the metric system as gave us the increased gas tax. Now , for reasons I cant understand, some folks thought it would be a great idea to let his son run the country off the rails for a few years. We will find out next week if he gets to keep his job
 
I find it interesting that my John Deere combine and corn planter are all made with metric fasteners, but my forage harvester from Quebec is not!
 
(quoted from post at 19:15:01 09/18/21) I know this is not tractor related. I also know that several people on this forum are Canadians.
I read an article stating Canada has made the metric system compulsory since 1975 about the time the US was going metric. Many, if not most of the
ads state food, etc. in pounds and in kilos or other appropriate comparisons. The pound amount is mainly or mostly in larger font than kilos in the
ads. In conclusion they are indicating that the general public is ignoring the kilos and would prefer to think in pounds since 1975.
I am just curious if this is true. Thanks for the replies.
GordyMN


Gordy, I think that you jumped to your conclusion, LOL.
 
That's what confuses me, plumbing sizes!

Is there metric pipe? I've never seen it. I've seen metric tubing, but not pipe. The worst is NTP vs BPT that I can't tell the difference by looking!

Are there metric lumber dimensions? Never seen that either.
 
I believe the US is the only country in the world still using the inch/pound system, we should of changed when Canada did, it would of helped us with exports, and we wouldn't have such a trade deficient. As an industrial mechanic I got pretty used to the metric system, it is better!
 
(quoted from post at 06:43:53 09/19/21) I am 60, and grew up with standard measure. The metric system was introduced when I was in grade 7, at age 11-12. Few things changed the first few years, but gradually the metric system was made mandatory legal measure for things. I started driving at 16 and bought gas at 49.9 cents/gallon in 1977. By 1979 gas was sold only by the litre, started out at ,26 cents per litre, and created a wonderful opportunity for the government of the day to raise the gas tax, because no one knew how much a litre was. They only knew the price of gas had more than doubled. Same jerk gave us the metric system as gave us the increased gas tax. Now , for reasons I cant understand, some folks thought it would be a great idea to let his son run the country off the rails for a few years. We will find out next week if he gets to keep his job

Wish I could find that pic of The Pretty Boy in India, dressed up like a native with all the actual Indian diplomats in suits and ties giving him "that" look! Best of luck in getting your country back!
 
Thanks for all the replies. i agree that from an export standpoint the US would maybe ne better off if we converted to metric long ago. At my age, it would be hard for me to convert to metric now. Years ago when I went to Canada I thought the gas was dirt cheap until I realized it was sold in meters, not gallons.
 
(quoted from post at 08:16:12 09/19/21) I find it interesting that my John Deere combine and corn planter are all made with metric fasteners, but my forage harvester from Quebec is not!

Go visit Quebec and all signage is in French primary and english secondary. And if the signage is owned by a business, they have language cops fining violators if french is not shown first on the signage.
 
we travel in miles not km, as are roads are all 1 mile apart. we talk acres not hectars.
we measure everything in ft and inches when building.
we talk 100, 200, 1000 meters when we talk about running races.
gas, oil, and milk is sold in liters
bolts are all standard except on imports that use metric. some use both
we say miles per gallon and only city folk say liters per 100km
we use Celsius in some thing and F in others
most people sell butter, fruit, nuts and such by the pound.
stores have it in both
city folk don't know the distance of a mile or Km only what the little Odometer tells them.
Don't get me wrong, city folk are good people just they don't get the education that they should. I have delt with many a city folk and deliver goods to them and they have never been out of the city and when I have taken them out they can't believe the open country and actually a few have been scared.
just amazes me how someone living 20 miles from you doesn't know what a farm or crop land looks like.
in Canada we are a little standard and a little metric and a little weird. Makes us all around good enough for me.
 
A guy could ramble on and on and on about the topic, but for anyone to say or think that the metric system is inferior to the British system of measurement is totally incorrect. Actually, I don't think anyone here today has said that but it has often been mentioned. It's just that it is unfamiliar and seems difficult to use. But when you think of it, our basic number system is metric (although it might not be called that). The whole 'number system' is based on tens, hundreds, and thousands in much the same way that metric measurement is. I still do a lot of thinking in the British system but temperature in Celsius, which I think was the first thing instituted back in the 70's up here, is in my everyday use and thinking, I can hardly think of Farenheit anymore. Just think, zero degrees as a freezing point for water and 100 degrees for boiling ..... as opposed to 32 degrees for freezing and 212 for boiling. Talk about confusing numbers. Whether we will ever completely shed the British system up here is doubtful in my opinion.
 
I spent two years in the US Army, so I do pretty well at roughly converting yards, miles. etc. to metric, and I drive into Lower B.C. many times a week, and have gotten pretty good at converting MPH tp KPH. I'm pretty good at estimating smaller metric sizes of wrenches. Beyond that, I need a conversion table.
 
"in Canada we are a little standard and a little metric and a little weird. Makes us all around good enough for me."[/quote]
cjunrau sums it up pretty well. I graduated high school in 1975, at the very beginning of the conversion. I've bought gas in both gallons and litres, porkloin in pounds and kilograms. At the start, I carried a pocket slide rule and converted back and forth. Don't bother much anymore. I know the weather temperatures in Celsius, but still do my heat treating temperatures in Fahrenheit. I can read metric drawings with ease, but given the choice, I still work in inches.
In the nineties, I worked for a spring manufacturer. Most of our drawings (not all) were in imperial, but most of our workforce only knew metric measure. The management of the time was determined to pound the imperial system into our metric workers- didn't work. After years of expensive mistakes, we finally added metric dimensions to our drawings. Problem solved.
Somewhere along the line, I just quit fussing about it.
Well, time to get ready for church. It's 8*C out, so I better put on a jacket. Just talking about vehicles last night. My Jeep has 220,000km on it, but still getting 35MPG. It's only 15km to the west place, but we're moving into town where the stores are only a mile away. See what I mean? We pick and choose which method of measure we use. I have a lovely digital read-out on my Bridgeport -one push of a button gives you imperial, another gives you metric. My favourite paint measuring cup has ounces on one side, and ml on the other.
Our Aussie friends converted somewhere around the time we did. When I read their posts, they are always in metric dimensions. Anybody want to chime in on this?
As flexible as I try to be, my favourite wrench is 9/16", and an acre is still 43,560 square feet. Y'all have a good day. unc
 
ooh yes our baby castro! we have an idiot trying to lead, and cant lead a horse to water.!
 
I live in WNY, and grew up just a few miles from the bridges to Canada. I watched mostly Canadian TV growing up: TVO, CBC, CHCH, etc, as the US stations were out of range. My brother and I would watch Bills football on TV in French (which got around NFL blackout rules), but turn the volume off and listen to the game on the radio in English.

In the 1970's, crossing the border was a lot easier and with the $$ exchange rate and imperial gallons at the time (5 US quarts instead of 4), buying gas was a better deal in Canada than in the US. The gas in your tank was not subject to import tax, so people would cross the border just to fill up. For all I know it still might be a better deal, except trying to do a currency exchange and a liters/gallons conversion on the spot at the pump is probably too much math for most, not to mention that post-9/11 made border crossing a headache, and the border is completely closed now anyway.

Anyone from a border US state will probably have similar experiences. Just about everyone had a mix of US and Canadian change in their pocket (the self-serve honor-system coffee pot at work even has a sign 'No Canadian Coins'), and you got used to driving 100 (KPH) when over the border, listening to weather forecasts in Celsius, etc. So it's a mish-mash of units on this side of the border, too. You probably see the same in MN.
 
="Dave41A"](reply to post at 15:26:47 09/19/21)

"For all I know it still might be a better deal, except trying to do a currency exchange and a liters/gallons conversion on the spot at the pump is probably too much math for most, not to mention that post-9/11 made border crossing a headache,"

Has not been a better deal in 30 years now, or more.
Use to live real close to Ogdensburg, NY but in Canada.
Was a monthly ritual to go shopping in Ogdensburg for groceries and everything else.
Small. USA border towns are really hurting with the border closed and the CA dollar so weak. They have lost more than half their business because the Canadians can't come across even to spend their weak dollar.
 
Double07: Yes. It goes both ways. There were certain things that were a better deal in Canada, and the other way 'round. Most of the stores on the US side take Canadian money at par. When the drinking age was raised to 21 on the US side, the college/high school crowd swarmed over to Canada for the bars (drinking age was 19 there at the time). Probably still that way. But it was more than shopping. Many people even lived on one side, but worked on the other. The rainbow bridge in Niagara Falls was even designated a commuter bridge. Not sure how that works now.
 
Interesting topic. I lived and worked in the Detroit area for many years, with my office downtown. I once had a secretary that lived on the Canadian side and commuted into the USA every day. The Windsor Ballet was funded mostly by American guys. I bet the border closing has made a mess of that.
 
I briefly worked in Port Angeles, WA. We could take the black ball ferry across to Victoria, BC, a beautiful town. Port Angeles, WA is 2 and a half hours drive from Seattle, the closest major American city. The ferry took 90 minutes. It's suspended now. Must be crushing the local economy.
 
There are a few Canadians that cross daily and work in the paper mill in International Falls MN, they were allowed to cross the
border and go directly to work, and back again, the mill is right at the end of the bridge.
 
You can all have your metric junk sizes. Nothing I have encountered in metric was standard. Bolts have a dozen thread pitches odd sized heads compared to the standard size heads for the bolt size. 3/8 bolts will have normally a 9/16 head and nut size for the wrench. As for the measurement. The ASE standard is in inches and finer figures in thousandths. Metric is some wedgie board figure.
 
We had a good working system of measures that everybody understood. Then our government forced the metric system on us. Better? No, just different. We have a hybrid system. Herbicides are sprayed in litres per acre. Crops yield in bushels per acre but can be sold by the tonne or bushel. Tire pressure is pounds persquare inch. I still prefer and use the farenheit system although many of my contemporaries have lost the ability to understand it. I'm just stubborn and non progressive.
 
(quoted from post at 10:34:01 09/19/21) ooh yes our baby castro! we have an idiot trying to lead, and cant lead a horse to water.!
aby castro still thinks he knows better and become very arrogant when shown the failure of his thinking and logic.
 

For a while in the late 1970s Canada
tried to go full metric with metric 2X4s , metric sized vehicle tires etc etc .
Did not work out .
 
(quoted from post at 06:21:31 09/21/21)
For a while in the late 1970s Canada
tried to go full metric with metric 2X4s , metric sized vehicle tires etc etc .
Did not work out .
Are vehicle tires already metric? As in P235-75R15? I think that used to be about an 8.00-15 in old sizes. Some big tractor radials I think are metric.
Got to go swath a 54 acre field of oats with my 21 foot swather now so won't be around to reply all day.
 
(quoted from post at 10:45:45 09/21/21)
(quoted from post at 06:21:31 09/21/21)
For a while in the late 1970s Canada
tried to go full metric with metric 2X4s , metric sized vehicle tires etc etc .
Did not work out .
Are vehicle tires already metric? As in P235-75R15? I think that used to be about an 8.00-15 in old sizes. Some big tractor radials I think are metric.
Got to go swath a 54 acre field of oats with my 21 foot swather now so won't be around to reply all day.

But no tire size is FULL metric. (Diameter is not)
 
72 year old Wisconsin resident. When I work on my dirtbike or automobile I use metric wrenches and can pretty well estimate the size I need. When I work on my old haybine or baler I use standard (American?) wrenches and can pretty well estimate the size I need.

Beer is sold in 12 ounce bottles, soda/pop is sold in 1/2 liter bottles.
No big deal for casual users.

Ken
 
(quoted from post at 06:45:45 09/21/21)
(quoted from post at 06:21:31 09/21/21)
For a while in the late 1970s Canada
tried to go full metric with metric 2X4s , metric sized vehicle tires etc etc .
Did not work out .
Are vehicle tires already metric? As in P235-75R15? I think that used to be about an 8.00-15 in old sizes. Some big tractor radials I think are metric.
Got to go swath a 54 acre field of oats with my 21 foot swather now so won't be around to reply all day.


Rusty, when you get back lease post how many hectares you swathed, LOL.
 
(quoted from post at 09:37:45 09/21/21) You can all have your metric junk sizes. Nothing I have encountered in metric was standard. Bolts have a dozen thread pitches odd sized heads compared to the standard size heads for the bolt size. 3/8 bolts will have normally a 9/16 head and nut size for the wrench. As for the measurement. The ASE standard is in inches and finer figures in thousandths. Metric is some wedgie board figure.

Lol.
 
(quoted from post at 11:16:06 09/21/21)
(quoted from post at 10:34:01 09/19/21) ooh yes our baby castro! we have an idiot trying to lead, and cant lead a horse to water.!
aby castro still thinks he knows better and become very arrogant when shown the failure of his thinking and logic.

You boys must be disappointed today.
 
I would not have the slightest clue how many hectares I swathed. It was 54 acres of half decent oats a little shelled out from the crazy winds and the fact I should have had them swthed a couple of weeks ago.
mvphoto82186.jpg
 

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