I could be wrong, but, honestly, I believe you have been taken in by an April
Fool's joke.
No diplomat would use an insensitive phrase like "trade irritant." In 1988,
Congress proclaimed metric as the preferred measurement system for trade and
commerce. A few years ago, we change temperatures in METARs (aviation weather
reports) to Celsius. We may metricate slowly (VERY!! slowly) but I find this
very hard to believe. Especially since NONE of other trading partners use
Fahrenheit either. Keep in mind Mexico is the third country of NAFTA and they
are arguable more metric than you and speak a foreign language to boot.
From: Michael Payne <[email protected]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, April 3, 2015 7:55 AM
Subject: [USMA:54678] Re: Troubling agreement
Here is the broadcast
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-wednesday-edition-1.3018322
You can listen to the full broadcast, the item I heard is in part 2:
temperature harmonization, An american trade representative tells us why his
country wants Canada to switch back to Fahrenheit. You can listen to part 2
only.
Mike Payne
u
On 03 Apr 2015, at 13:19, John M. Steele <[email protected]> wrote:
The International Dairy Foods Association lists several protocols (time and
temperature) for pasteurization, including ultra-pasteurized, which can be
stored at room temperature. The US uses mostly 15 s, 72 °C. I wonder if the
difference is merely which protocol is preferred or required. I can't imagine
we would quibble over whether the temperature is stated in °C or °F as long as
they were equivalent.
http://www.idfa.org/news-views/media-kits/milk/pasteurization
From: Michael Payne <[email protected]>
To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, April 2, 2015 8:20 AM
Subject: [USMA:54674] Troubling agreement
I just happened to be listening to the CBC news early this morning was half
asleep but paid more attention when I realized they were discussing an apparent
agreement for Canada to drop some of it’s metric requirements for trade with
the USA (NAFTA?), they talked about pasteurization temperatures as an example,
from the sound of the conversation this was being pushed on Canada by the
Washington based trade negotiator, the presenter seemed a little aghast that
this could happen,
I’ve not had time to google this apart from a cursory “Canada to drop metric
system nafta” query which didn’t seem to bring up anything. Later on I’ll be
able to spend a bit more time researching this, but I’m really amazed that this
is being stuffed down the throats of the Canadians.
Mike Payne
