Han wrote in USMA 16172: >In 'old' metric countries butter is sold in 250 and 500 g packs. >As long as butter is sold in 454 g packs in Canada and other 'new metric' >countries there will be no progress at all. It is simply the continuation of >the old Imperial pack expressed in irrational metric. This is probably one >big reason why people are opposed to SI. They could say '1 lb' in the past, >now they have to say '454 g'. In the end soft metric is no metric. It is >either proof of gross innumeracy or it is used to set up people against the >metric system or to get back at metric users like in this example from last >year:
The (Canadian) Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act was revised in 1977 to require metric labelling of prepackaged food, but not to require hard metric. That produced no public outcry because there was no apparent change. As new products have been put on the market they have tended to be in hard metric; again no protests. Butter is almost the only remaining prepackaged food product in soft metric. Loose food is weighed in kilograms at the check-out counter and has its kilogram price printed on the cash register sales slip, even though the advertised and displayed price is predominantly per pound. This unsatisfactory situation was the fault of the Progressive Conservative gavernment that was elected in the summer of 1984 Joseph B.Reid 17 Glebe Road West Toronto M5P 1C8 TEL. 416-486-6071
