EDITORIAL – Metric is a failure; let’s go back to the good old Imperial system
(Mel Rothenburger photo)
An ArmchairMayor.ca editorial by Mel Rothenburger.
WE STILL LIVE in two solitudes in this country.
I don’t mean the French-English thing. I mean the Imperial-Metric thing.
I was behind a delivery truck the other day. It had a caution sign on the back that said, “STAY BACK 10 METRES.” A couple of blocks later, I ended up behind another truck. It had a caution sign on the back: “STAY BACK 30 FEET.”
We’ve been struggling to adopt metric for 46 years. It’s not working.
We still buy two-by-fours. We weigh people mostly in pounds. Shoe sizes haven’t changed. Official documents in which land parcels are measured almost always put acreages in brackets to explain the hectares. We buy 8.5 by 11-inch paper, and measure our TV screens in inches.
On the other hand, kids of more recent generations use metric distances like centimetres and metres. Temperatures are in Celsius, sure, and even us ancients can tell how fast we’re going in clicks per hour.
But what is a millimeter of rain, a centimeter of snow, a kilopascal?
Metric is more trouble than it’s worth. Pierre Trudeau thought it would make us more competitive internationally or something, and appointed the late Len Marchand Sr. to convert us.
There was so much opposition, though, that eventually Ottawa gave up on the original plan to make metric mandatory for everything. Now we have this hybrid system. What sense does it make for automobile drivers to measure distance in kilometres, and train engineers to measure distance in miles?
Can you imagine playing a football game on a field measured in metric. Or a golf course?
Let’s send the millilitres and grams packing and bring back good old fluid ounces and pounds.
Plumbers, carpenters and electricians knew changing to metric would be dumb. Our school system is starting to catch up, at least in Ontario, where both metric and Imperial are now taught.
We’ll never get to full metrication and that’s no loss, so let’s get back to the system that worked just fine — Imperial.
Delivery truck drivers will thank us.
Got an opinion? Leave a comment, or write mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
The ruler I had at school back in the distant 40,s had inches on one side and centimeters on the other. I,ll bet the politically correct metric gang didn,t know that. Nobody,including Mel don,t want to go back completely to the Imperial system,now that we are about half metric. Time heals all,eh Camille?
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Three countries have not adopted the metric system. United States, Myanmar and Liberia. Abandoning the metric system would be costly, would lead to more confusion and frankly is a downright stupid suggestion.
Perhaps it will be fully adopted once all of you “get off my lawn” types pass. I’m over 40 and have never had a problem adjusting to the proper system when required. Yes, it’s a pain that we need two sets of wrenches to work on our cars but that’s simple. Don’t buy American.
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I know enough Metric so I can convert to pounds, and inches when I need to. They still put the pound price on fresh foods just so that us old timers know ( and understand ) how much we are paying for goods. The whole Metric thing was a failed experiment.
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“the good old imperial system”? You mean the system where a US and a Canadian gallon are different sizes? Where, when I need a bigger bolt than a 7/64ths, its a 1/8th? Are we talking way back, like measuring in bushels and pecks?
Yes, a lot of our measurements are done in imperial, or rather, the US version of imperial, because they’re our biggest trading partner. But I also like metric, because it is CONSISTENT from country to country. Its unfortunate the US never changed to metric; Im sure that would have sped up our process. But to argue to go back is ludicrous. Other countries (Britain) use a hybrid system. I think the hybrid system works just fine – I’m 6’1″, my shoe size is 13, I drive at 100kph, and I get 8L/100km fuel mileage. Why is that hard?
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Seriously? By the way, a “pound” is actually a unit of force, not mass. From a scientist’s point of view, metric
makes much more sense. But how can we talk sense into countries with “imperial standards” when they vote for
Trump?
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Bilingual people have a lifetime advantage over unilingual people. It is good for us to understand the international (scientific) system of measurement. Yes, we use both systems – that is good. I’m so glad we are not completely stuck in the old system like the U.S.
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You are joking, right?
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