I believe the limited change before metric came in , I REMEMBER SEEING SIGNS AT 70 mph and then dropping to 60 mph along the 400You misunderstand.
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Certainly regional changes of the speed limit were present for decades, but when Canada went METRIC all the speed signs in Ontario converted in 1977.
How did they get away with this?
1. Generally the citizenry are stupid, so, and just like today, it always makes for a good platform to do something really ignorant by government. Consequently, when the idea was floated many ppl thought that the metric limits were actually faster.
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What those very stunned citizens didn't realize, before their fate were sealed, was that 80 kph was actually 49.9 mph, an absurdly slow speed limit to drive around most of Ontario.
2. Fateful timing; oil shortage in the USA during the entire 70s. The lower speeds limits were sold as helping the "oil crisis".
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The One
Two Punch The moment gasoline sales were converted to metric the Trudeau Libs slapped at huge tax on the pump price. Again, ppl were too stunned/complacent to do the calculations into standard and realize just how much per gallon the increase actually represented. This "liter" BS haunts us to this very day.
In 1990 gas would increase a few cents per liter and Canadians would just shrug and accept it. In 1990, a bad economic time in the USA, I was in Lakeland, Florida, and over night gas went up 5 cents to reach one dollar a gallon all over the state. It was huge news; papers and TV. The next day every gas station in Lakeland had an armed employee standing outside with a shot gun.
The only way I'd vote for that scurvey dog Harponi is if he decreed (he's good at that) that all gasoline be sold in US gallons. Consequently, stunned Canadians would then see 5 BUCKS per gallon rather than the measly $1.25 per liter and maybe, just maybe, WAKE UP!.
Same with the speed limits; back to mph.