Doug Nix

Category: Politics

  • What being Canadian means to me

    What being Canadian means to me

    Back in the early 2ks, Molson Brewery ran an ad campaign called “I AM.” One of the ads from that campaign really resonated across the country. Here it is in case you haven’t seen it.

    Jeff updated the original ad during the recent “51st state” fracas between the US and Canada. The video and the image below effectively capture what being Canadian means to me. Jeff Douglas’s passion for our core values and the differences between Canadians and Americans resonates with me.

    We Are Canadian by Jeff Douglas, 2025

    Pierre Elliot Trudeau was one of Canada’s great Prime Ministers. His words, spoken in front of the Ukrainian-Canadian Congress in 1971, are still relevant today. Ironically, he said these words to a group of people, many of whom had fled the Soviet Union to escape the Holodomor in the 1930s. Canada has welcomed many Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war being waged on them by Russia. Canadians help people in need. That’s what we do.

    Pierre Trudeau's Remarks to the Ukrainian-Canadian Congress, 1971-10-09. "Uniformity is neither desirable nor possible in a country the size of Canada. We should not even be able to agree upon the kind of Canadian to choose as a model, let alone persuade most people to emulate it. There are few policies potentially more disastrous for Canada than to tell all Canadians that they must be alike. There is no such thing as a model or ideal Canadian. What could be more absurd than the concept of an "all-Canadian" boy or girl? A society which emphasizes uniformity is one which creates intolerance and hate. A society which eulogizes the average citizen is one which breeds mediocrity. What the world should be seeking, and what in Canada we must continue to cherish, are not concepts of uniformity but human values: compassion, love, and understanding."
    Pierre Trudeau’s Remarks to the Ukrainian-Canadian Congress, 1971-10-09.

    Finally, despite all the criticism, I like the video by Mark Carney and Mike Myers that was released just before the 2025 federal election.

  • Ford’s Election

    Election – A Haiku

    by wristPin

    Beautiful leaping
    A sad conservative win
    Progressive dreams lost

    Bonhoeffer‘s Theory of Stupidity – Sprouts

  • Metric system

    A vernier scale is a visual aid to take an accurate measurement reading between two graduation markings on a linear scale by using mechanical interpolation; thereby increasing resolution and reducing measurement uncertainty by using Vernier acuity to reduce human estimation error
    Photo by Ag PIC on UnSplash

    The USA, along with 40 other countries signed the the Treaty of the Meter in Paris in 1875. In the late 1960s, both the US and Canada decided that continued use of the Imperial system of measurements, or inch-pound system in the US, didn’t make sense since the rest of the world worked and lived in the SI Metric system. If you were in grade school in Canada during the early 70s like I was, you will remember learning both systems.

    Failures in conversion lead to mistakes

    Violet will never be able to instinctively judge temperatures in Celsius, she wasn’t raised to. And being raised without the metric system is like being born with weights on your brain.

    In metric, one milliliter of water occupies one cubic centimeter, weighs one gram, and requires one calorie of energy to heat up by one degree centigrade, which is 1% of the difference between its freezing point and its boiling point. And amount of hydrogen weighing the same amount has exactly one mole of atoms in it. Whereas in the American system, the answer to “how much energy does it take to boil a room temperature gallon of water?” is Go fuck yourself, because you can’t directly relate any of those quantities.

    Wild Thing – Josh Bazell

    The US gave up on conversion to SI Metric, at least in part because replacing all of the speed limit signs and milage marker signs with new signage showing the metric limits was just going to be too expensive. In 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter burned up in the Red Planet’s atmosphere because of a unit mix-up between NASA and Lockheed Martin [1]. Today, only the United States, Liberia, Myanmar and a handful of island nations use versions of the imperial system [2], [3], [4].

    Canada completed the transition but requires dual unit markings on product labels. Many Canadians continue to cook in Imperial measures (cups, quarts, teaspoons and tablespoons) while driving in km/h and deciding what jacket to wear based on ºC, but set their thermostats using ºF.

    The consequences for Canadians include tape measures and rulers with both inches and millimetres, dimensional lumber only measured in feet and inches, i.e., a 2 x 4 x 8′. Dimensional lumber is smaller than the “trade size,” just to make things a bit more confusing. A 2 x 4 is actually 1-3/4″ x 3-1/2″. Sheet lumber, like plywood and OSB flooring, has the thickness measured in millimetres, but the sheet size in feet, i.e., 4′ × 8′. The confusion continues in many other materials as well. But I digress.

    Failure to progress

    In 2022, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the UK announced that he intended to rescind the UK’s conversion to the metric system in favour of reversion to the Imperial system of weights and measures [7]. This is yet another example of mindless decisions made on purely populist ideology since most of the UK’s business is done with metric countries in the EU and elsewhere. As Mr. Johnson is no longer the PM, this particular bit of madness may have passed the UK by. Unless, of course, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak decides that Mr. Johnson had a good idea.

    Why convert to metric

    For the most part, science and engineering are done in SI Metric, even in the USA. Medicine using SI Metric as well, again, except in the USA. At some point, I hope that the idealistic hold-outs recognize that clinging to obsolete systems of weights and measures does nothing but hamper trade and innovation. Still, I doubt that such logical thinking will prevail before the end of my life.

    Hope is the thing with feathers
    That perches in the soul
    And sings the tune without the words
    And never stops at all.

    Emily Dickinson

    References

    [1] “Math Error Equals Loss of Mars Orbiter”, Science News, 1999. [Online]. Available: https://www.sciencenews.org/archive/math-error-equals-loss-mars-orbiter. [Accessed: 18- Jun- 2022].

    [2] “Countries That Don’t Use the Metric System 2022”, Worldpopulationreview.com, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-that-dont-use-the-metric-system. [Accessed: 18- Jun- 2022].

    [3] C. Martin, “The U.S. has resisted the metric system for more than 50 years”, Science News, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/united-states-has-resisted-metric-system-more-than-50-years. [Accessed: 15- Jun- 2022].

    [4] “Supporting American Choices on Measurement | We the People: Your Voice in Our Government”, Web.archive.org, 2012. [Online]. Available: https://web.archive.org/web/20161216191145/https:/petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-metric-system-standard-united-states-instead-imperial-system. [Accessed: 18- Jun- 2022].

    [5] “Ten Years to Metric”, Science News, 1970. [Online]. Available: https://www.sciencenews.org/archive/ten-years-metric. [Accessed: 15- Jun- 2022].

    [6] P. Gallagher, “Make the Metric system the standard in the United States, instead of the Imperial system.”, We the People, 2012. [Online]. Available: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/make-metric-system-standard-united-states-instead-imperial-system. [Accessed: 15- Jun- 2022].

    [7] “Boris Johnson to reportedly bring back imperial measurements to Mark Platinum jubilee,” The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/28/boris-johnson-set-to-bring-back-imperial-measurements-to-mark-platinum-jubilee (accessed Aug. 25, 2023).