I believe Canada has used the metric system since 1970. However, when I watch the various “Holmes” programs I note when measurements are required they use “feet/inches” tape measurements.
In construction are “feet/inches” easier to deal with than centimeters?
It’s just what people were used to and the construction industry is too entrenched to try and change it. Plumbers still use common screws and square bolts. Besides, ordering 5.08 x 10.16s at the lumber yard doesn’t ring quite as nice! 
Canada (which I say as a Canadian) exists in a sort of limbo between both Imperial and metric systems. Technically all things are to be measured in metric. However, in practice, we sort of use both, depending on the whatzit being measured.
Weights: Often in kilograms, except people (pounds only), food (grams or pounds, sometimes kilograms). Heavy weights are usually (Imperial short) tons, sometimes metric tonnes.
Distance/height: Long overland distances are usually in kilometers, but some people still use miles although this is pretty rare. Sometimes these distances are expressed as hours of travel by car (Ottawa to Toronto is roughly “five hours”). Feet/inches for measuring one’s height, though licenses have metric units.
Volume: Metric. Liters, milliliters. Baking units may show up in cups/teaspoons and such.
Packaged products in grocery stores are frequently in metric units, but are clearly just converted over from US units. It is possible to buy a bag of coffee beans in 908 gram backs (2 lbs). If I recall correctly, cans of soda (I don’t usually buy these things) are 473 or 591 mL.
As with all things and this being a large country with a dispersed population, there will be regionalisms and variations.
Construction uses both systems. Both because of historical reasons, because some practically sized things are easier to say with imperial, and since a number of suppliers are ultimately American subsidiaries.
It really mainly a pain with fasteners, where screws and some tools (eg sockets) come in both metric and imperial sizes.
Canadians often report their height and weight in foot/inches and pounds. Most Canadians know 10C=50F and every nine degree change in F is a five degree change in C, so 5C=41F=40, 15C=59F=60, etc.
A lot of things here in the UK are still Imperial. Babies are always in pounds, we still have miles on the roads but metres on footpaths.
The building trades have pretty much gone metric. timber comes in sensible dimensions like 50x100 or 25x225. Screws are all metric sizes 10, 20, 30mm etc with various gauges. Sheet ply comes in 2440x1220 which is the old 8x4 converted.
Few Brits would state their weight in kilos or pounds. We tend to use stones (14lb). Fahrenheit has pretty much disappeared altogether.
The school system really started to switch over in about 1974, which was when I started kindergarten so I’m equally conversant. My siblings, 5 and 8 years older, are much more imperially based. My kids don’t really know temperature other than Celsius (except for oven temps) but human sizes are feet/inches/pounds. Distances are km, volume is litres, baking is cups/tsp/tbsp.
We’re a weird breed.
For reference, a whatzit is 5/8 (0.625) of the American doohickey.
Not my experience. In my last physical my weight was recorded in kg. I remember the nice receptionist, seeing me as being old and obviously accustomed to archaic systems of measurement, converted it to pounds for me.
Bless you, my son, you are recalling not soda, but beer. Tall beer cans are 473 ml. Soda cans are typically 355 ml.
One strange anomaly in Canada and perhaps in other metric countries is that oven temperatures (and pretty much everything related to cooking) is in degrees Fahrenheit. All other temperatures are Celsius.
Forgive me father, for I have sinned. I have had many beers, and I have not always shared them.
We’re hitting one of those regionalisms. My wife, who is from the prairies, will still do room temperature/weather in Fahrenheit. We have a bit of amusing friction as I think of temperatures strictly in Celsius and I have no conception of what she’s on about.
Currently, our oven (though it is a bit old) is a Fahrenheit affair.
A lot of remaining archaic measurements in Canada are a result of the dominance of the US in the context of the North American marketplace. In construction, for example, lumber all comes in feet and inches because lumber mills aren’t going to do separate runs for the Canadian market. So plywood is 4’x8’, 2x4’s are 1 1/2" x 3 1/2", etc. Almost all fasteners are imperial sizes. Metric fasteners are relegated to a little stretch on the back wall of the industrial hardware store. But in commercial construction, drawings are usually in metric. It’s weird.
Some holdovers are more ingrained. Distances on gravel roads in rural Saskatchewan, for example, are in miles, because the land is surveyed in sections with north/south grid roads every mile, and east/west grid roads every two miles. So directions to the family farm are take Highway XX out of town about 20km till you get to ______ Rd. Turn north and go 4 miles till you hit the correction line. Continue north another 4 miles and it’s on your left.
I think the reason for Farenheit and imperioal volutme in cooking is that we get more cooking info from the States than from Britain. Plus, British cooks weigh things, while North American cooks use volume.
Also, unless you inexplicably need to make a Toad in the Hole, a Spotted Dick, or a Bubble and Squeak, no one needs British recipes. 
But yes, I think that’s true. The influence of the US makes it a matter of practicality to have oven temperatures, meat thermometer readings, and quantity measurements in US units. It’s not really as odd as it might seem since oven and meat doneness temperatures and the like are in a different range than weather or room temperatures. One just gets used to a certain number range and what it means in each context.
Pretty much this. I grew up with Imperial and the switch to metric happened about the time I graduated high school. It was a traumatic change for some people. Not me, I took assorted sciences in university so needed and understood metric anyway. Plus, as a trivia buff I learned about rods, furlongs and chains and hogsheads and barrels, nautical miles fathoms, troy ounces, not to mention the variation between Imperial and US fluid measurements.
When Trudeau - the other one, the one without good hair - moved Canada to metric, it was the wave of the future, but the major benefit of the Canadian parliamentary system was that as dictator for 5 years, he could impose the system and ignore the blowback; the Americans allegedly started conversion at the same time, but were not prepared for the backlash; independent minded politicians needing reelection every 2 years could not handle it. (Once in the 80’s I actually bought gas once in litres n Michigan). Canada could do things like threaten to fin merchants who advertised in pounds, or failed to sell and measure produce or meat in metric. (Funny thing - the government said “What’s the big deal? Manufacturers will just give you a new set of weight numbers to stick on the scale.” Meanwhile, they didn’t - seems it made more sense to sell every merchant whole new scales instead. ) It wasn’t quite as strict as the French Revolution in imposing the new system, but close. Trudeau’s French heritage was certainly showing.
About that time, the billboard outside Sault Ste Marie advertising Wawa showed the iconic Wawa Canada Goose statue and the text “Wawa - only 200 goose steps (kilometers)”.
I can relate in Fahrenheit or Celsius, but I have to stop to think about actual translations. I can do miles or km equally, but more often think in km now since all raod markings and speed limits are km. (real simple - divide by 10, multiple by 6. 100km=60mi (actually 62.5) 50km/hr - 30mph. the other way, divide by 6, multiply by 10. 55mph/6 =9, so 90kph. An hour driving is 100km or 60mi. I still think in pounds of meat, but buy in kilograms. My weight is in pounds and I’d need a calculator to convert - pretty much everyone is the same. But… my exercise is in calories.
The building industry uses the same sizes as our 10-times-larger USA neighbours. First, lumber yards would have to carry 2 sizes, to permit repairs to old houses plus new construction; not worth it. So lumber, carpets, tiles, pipes, etc are all still imperial.
Similarly, shoe sizes are approximately inches (sort of) and didn’t change, pant waists and inseams are still American sizes not Euro-Metric.(But then every country over there seems to have a different size chart.) Even hat sizes seem to relate to inches. Go rent ski boots, you tell them you foot size in approximate inches, they give you a European ski boot in some odd metric size that corresponds. (I’m a 10 but they hand me a pair of 280 or something…) the skis themselves are metric, thanks to the Alpine influences. If you are into sewing, AFAIK cloth is still sold in yards. TV’s are still sized in inches diagonal, as are computer monitors.
Cars imported from Japan or Europe used to be an anomaly in metric, but nowadays metric is almost everywhere in mechanical parts, so it’s still a mixed bag. Tires still have part inch sizes in them…
And basically, that’s the way it’s been for decades. Things that could change without major disruption, or ease their way into life, did.
Recently, our money has gone from metric to duodecimal.
I’ve bought gas in metric in the US. During the first oil boycott back in 1973, the price of gas per gallon went over what the gas pumps could handle. The pumps could not set the price per whatever volume unit to more than $.50 but the size of the unit could be changed. Some stations changed to price per half gallon and some to price per liter. During the second boycott, the same happened but the limit on the pumps was $.99. Same solution.
BTW, I expect bicycles in Canada are all in metric units, whether the size of tires (or tyres, if you must), size of the frame, or the Allen wrenches needed. But that’s because the US has largely gone that way.
Please explain.
Well, even Europe goes with “two by fours” in this particular case.
Not really. A carpenter on a building site might think “two by four”, but they will order 50 by 75.
I should’ve elaborated. I was talking about the term people use informally, just like the Canadians who are supposed to use kilograms, but never do when discussing people’s weights etc.
I’m 44, and I’ve been around carpentry, construction and renovation most of my life. I have never heard anyone use anything else than two by four when on site, building stuff, or talking about building stuff. Everybody also knows that the two by four is not literally 2" x 4".
Two by four in the Euro lands is in reality 50 x 100 mm, or within millimeters of 2" x 4". I don’t know where you got the 50 by 75 mm idea.
Also, you know what a 1x4" board is called here: an incher. Or a 3/4" board? Three-quarter board. This, even when inches were abolished app. 150 years ago in favor of the Metric system.
My wife is a cookbook fanatic, in fact she is writing one herself at the moment. She prefers to order the British editions if she can get it over the North American specifically because of this. Her publisher is insisting on cups etc. for her own book.
I also grew up in the prairies and I think of room temperature as 70 degrees (because that’s what our thermostat said when I was a kid) and a pleasantly warm outdoor temperature as 25 degrees (because that’s the temperature they reported on the weather report when I was a kid).
However, I’ve been getting used to understanding height in centimeters over the past 15 years because my wife doesn’t understand feet and inches (she’s originally from China).
I want to confirm this. I have a friend who spent two years in Oslo. He speaks Norwegian (he grew up in Northfield, MN, where everyone speaks Norwegian). He wanted a piece of 2 x 4 and went to a lumber yard in Oslo and asked for a 5 x 10 cm board. The clerk took the order and then called back to the woodshop and asked for a 2 x 4.
To get back to the OP: Stoves seem to be only in F. Our doctor has an old-fashioned balance scale denominated only in inches. On the other hand, all road distance signs are in km (in contrast to England where, at least the last time I was there, they seem to be in miles). My height seems to be measured in ft and in. Although my driver’s licence gives my weight in kg and ht in cm. And most cooking instructions use cups, ounces, etc. Weather forecasts are in C, but I am quite happy to use either. I live in an apartment that has a thermostat in all rooms, 5 including the bathrooms. Four of them are in C and the fifth in F.