The World - News from Feb. 1, 1985

The government has retreated from a decade-long effort to require Canadians to adopt the metric system. Michel Cote, consumer affairs minister, announced in Parliament that gallons, pounds and inches are legal again. “Canadians feel, and we agree, that compulsory metric is a heavy-handed and insensitive approach,” Cote said. The metric system, adopted in 1976, was presented as a tool to expand Canadian exports by conforming to world standards. However, opponents say more than two-thirds of Canada’s exports go to the United States, where the metric system is not enforced.