Canadians happy sticking with Metric system over Imperial despite primarily using feet, inches and pounds: survey

Canadians might use feet and inches to measure height more often than metres and centimetres, but a new survey suggests a majority of us aren’t on board with officially adopting the Imperial system.

The poll, conducted by Research Co., surveyed 1,000 adults in Canada from Aug. 1-3.

Among its findings, more than half of respondents (56%) said they would “probably” or “definitely” not want to see Canada adopt the Imperial system over the currently used International Metric System, while only 29 per cent said they would like to see the change.

The survey found that older respondents were more likely to want to return to the Imperial system, while younger people were happy as-is.

“Practically two-in-five Canadians aged 55 and over (38%) would go back to the Imperial system of units,” Mario Canseco, President of Research Co., said in a statement. “This wish is less prevalent among their counterparts aged 35-to-54 (23%) and aged 18-to-34 (24%).”

The survey also asked respondents what system they prefer to use in everyday life, finding that an overwhelming majority (80%) measure heights primarily in feet and inches.

Slightly fewer (76%) used pounds over kilograms when calculating weight, and 59 per cent measure oven temperature in Fahrenheit instead of Celsius.

But there are some cases where Canadians use Metric over Imperial, the survey suggests.

Eighty-four per cent of respondents said they calculate the amount of liquid in a container using litres instead of quarts and gallons, and 82 per cent use kilometres per hour instead of miles per hour.

More than three-quarters (77%) measure outdoor temperature in Celsius over Fahrenheit, the survey found.

Research Co. said data collected by the survey has been statistically weighted to Census figures for age, gender and region, and the margin of error for the poll is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

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