At the store I saw someone I knew from school driving what looked like an 82 cougar. It was the boxy kind, four doors, 255ci (smog) motor, 2bbl carb. Here is the strange part:
He claimed it was an 83 modle, and showed my his registration which said: 1983 Mercury Cougar XR7. So I checked the VIN with coolcats.net's tech info, it was technically an 83 car.
So my conclusion is that Ford of Canada had a few to many cars left over in late 82, so they sold them as 83's.