Happy Birthday, Celsius! Canada marks 50 years of metric-Imperial measurements
Happy Birthday, Celsius! Canada marks 50 years of metric-Imperial measurements
Environment Canada's use of Celsius turns 50 years old in 2025.
It was the catalyst of a lengthy national metric conversion that abruptly ended a decade after it began.
A bone-chilling April Fools’ Day in 1975 marked the first time Canadians used Celsius to measure weather temperature.
Mulroney scrapped the full conversion because it was Trudeau Sr that implemented it. Can't have anything nice ;)
Brian Mulroney looks up at us from hell and smiles about the mess he caused.
Having grown up in Canada, I always thought the mishmash of metric and imperial was a mess....now I live in the UK and they have an even stupider mishmash. Like wtf is stone, and why tf is it only used to measure a person's weight?
We buy in metric and measure in imperial. 1 kg of flour please, then I go home and measure it in cups and tablespoons.
For cooking, etc we should have names for 5, 10, and 25 ML, 125mL etc. Worst thing they did was try to say is that 250mL is a cup, when it is actually a great way to screw up a recipe. Fortunately Alexa does my conversions for me while my hands are wet or occupied.
But either way, I still need to know Imperial so that I can talk to Americans. Some folks seem to think being clueless about metric is some badge of honour.
My most profound memory of that time was the Gimli Glider making the world news cycle.
Got a piece of the Glider’s fuselage strapped to my carryon when I fly for good luck.
Wow!
Hopefully we drop imperial use more.
Moved to Canada around 5 years ago and I am still surprised by how much imperial is still used here.
Hmm. I also turn 50 this year. I don’t think I knew Canada’s Celsius use was the same age as me.
🤘
Or the time to consume 46.000 burgers.