The plan to roll out metric gradually throughout the 1970s
'The metric system is advisable, and inevitable,' said a 1971 report
Metric was already well established in Canada by November 1974, but there was still a long way to go before everyone was driving in kilometres after buying gas by the litre.
To help the process along, there was the Metric Commission.
"The Metric Commission is a sort of father persuader," said CBC reporter Peter Daniel in a report dated Nov. 12, 1974 on the country's progress in adopting the metric system.
Even though a 1971 government white paper had said metric was "advisable and inevitable" in Canada, there was no forthcoming legislation to force the adoption of metric.
'No turning back'
"The commission has now taken things to the point where there is no turning back," said Daniel.
At the bustling headquarters of the Metric Commission, a board displayed where some of the 60-odd metric committees were "discussing the problems of metrication" on any given day.
"It could be the new sizes of tomato juice cans, sugar packaging, or screws and nails used in construction," said Daniel.
Posters showed the schedules for metric to be incorporated into various aspects of Canadian life: road signs by 1977, teaching in schools from 1975 to 1980, and food packaging by mid-1976.
At the grocery store
As the CBC's Norman DePoe had reported almost a year earlier, metric was already in use on packages like Mutt Kibble dog food, Pepsodent toothpaste and Five Roses flour.
"The big problem is that the old sizes come out to odd figures in the metric system," he said.
But shoppers were unfazed by the experience.
One woman said she didn't pay attention to the numbers on the package, another admitted she might have to in 10 years, and a third said she was already using metric at the hospital where she worked.
'Metric generation'
And that was where metric might be noticed more than in a supermarket.
"It may come as a shock to the new fathers and mothers, but their infants are being weighed in in grams," said DePoe. "This one at 3,830."
"I'm not going to tell you how much that is in pounds and ounces. What's important is that he's one of the first of Canada's metric generation. The rest of us have only a few years to get in step."
