Imperial and Metric Measurement Systems in Canada

                                                       (Draft 2^nd after 1^st correction)

I would tell one confusing story which happened to me recently.

One day my husband and I were going to the nearest town for groceries when our neighbour asked to buy for him “two quarts of half and half cream”. As my husband and I came from Europe, where we both used metric measurement system (he is from Germany and I am from Ukraine), we guessed that one quart is 250ml, or ¼ litre. So we bought two 237ml packs of half and half cream. But what a surprise when we came back home and our neighbour came to pick up his goods. According to the imperial measurement system one quart is 0.9463 litres which is more than ¼ (one quarter) litre in the metric system. It is not hard to guess that our calculations were wrong and instead of two quarts we bought two quarter-litres.

After this strange situation, I asked myself why it happened, why there was a misunderstanding. So I went to my “best friend”, the internet, and found the answer to my questions. According to my search, only three countries in the world, namely USA, Liberia, and Burma, still officially use the archaic imperial system of weights and measures. But what about Canada? Canada adopted and has officially used the metric system since 1970s, but imperial measurements are often used as well. The use of metric or imperial measurement varies by age and region. Older Canadians are sometimes more familiar with the imperial measurement, whereas younger Canadians are more familiar with metric. And it seems many provinces and territories in Canada include the imperial system of measurement as a part of their school education.

I’m sure, many immigrants have often had similar confusing situations which I had: in grocery stores, hardware stores, clothing shops, medical clinics, and etc. In my opinion the better way to avoid the similar situations with this not official double measurement system is: the government should make strict decision of which one of the measurement system in Canada people have to use. Why we should make our life more difficult if we can make our life easier!