Editor:
Re: Survey: Measuring metrification; Mario Canseco (Optimist website)
Thank you, Mr. Canseco, for delving into this issue – Metric or Imperial measure.
Even after 50 years, Canadians are torn between Metric and Imperial measurement.
Can’t they decide? Or have the Powers That Be decide?
Three countries with similar histories, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, had no problem abandoning Imperial measurement and converting within some five years. All are happily and unambiguously metric now.
Is it the social and commercial influence of the USA that stops us going the entire metric route? Or are we just not sure what we want? If either, shame on us!
The US has shunned the metric system for no good reason, although NASA was shamed into adopting it after a conversion error caused the failure of the Mars Climate Orbiter in 1999.
It’s ironic to think that the only country in the world to stick with the Imperial system of measurement is one that, historically, has been so anti-British-Imperialist. Sorry, there is another - Liberia.
Wouldn’t things be so much simpler if temperatures were all in Celsius, distances all in kilometres, weights all in kilograms, volumes all in litres, etc.?
Chris Stanton
