Stamp of corporate approval

>> Canada Post celebrates the millennium with cigarettes and junk food By CRAIG SEGAL

Nothing celebrates Canada like a picture of a Jos Louis on a stamp. Unless patriotism inspires you to mail your letter stamped with an image of a pack of McCain french fries, set against bright green potato pastures. Or maybe a baby's face covered in Pablum?

All three are part of Canada Post's Millennium Collection. This set of 68 stamps, available since September for $59.99, is meant to commemorate "the people, institutions and events that have helped define our nation."

Most of the stamps recognize national symbols like Le Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian Space Program, Meals on Wheels and Terry Fox. But McCain qualified for the honour because its machines spew frozen fries faster than you can defrost them: "The company that was started in 1957 in a Florenceville, New Brunswick factory with 30 employees, now has more than 16,000 employees and produces almost 350,000 kilograms of french fries an hour," said a Canada Post press release.

One Millennium Collection stamp even plugs big tobacco: it honours the MacDonald Stewart Foundation, credited, according to a press release, with supporting "universities, historical projects, and medical research," but is funded by cigarette maker RJR-MacDonald.

Leftists don't like 'em

"Corporations are intertwined with our history. I don't think we should be naive about that," activist Naomi Klein, author of the popular anti-corporate book No Logo, told the Mirror. "But when you have Canada Post advertising for these companies it's just painful."

"This is a bit saddening," agreed Kalle Lasn, founder of the Vancouver-based anti-advertizing magazine Adbusters. "I think that stamps are a wonderful medium, but if they cheapen them in this way, they just become another commercial medium."

Not that such comments would disturb the crown corporation. According to Canada Post's head of media relations, Tim McGurrin, the stamps have not been particularly unpopular. "We get criticized by people all the time," said McGurrin. "We get criticized when we put kittens on stamps by people who think they know our business better than we do."

Sticking businesses on stamps is nothing new for Canada Post, which has done so up to 20 times before. In 1996, Canadians were licking the business end of Winnie the Pooh, Eaton's was adorning letters in '94, and Canadian Tire got a 75th anniversary stamp in '97.

As for the Millennium Collection, McGurrin stated that there was no lobbying or payments by corporations to appear on the stamps, and that the idea came from Canada Post.

"The message is that these businesses are worth as much as people. We're very proud to recognize them," said McGurrin. "The Hudson's Bay Company, for example, created Canada in a sense and to ignore that is insane. It borders on the ridiculous."

Philatelists don't like 'em either

But it's not just culturally literate lefties who are cynical about the stamps: some of Canada's top philatelists (stamp collectors) would like Canada Post to stick the stamps where the sun don't shine.

"I thought it was a joke when it first came out. I really did," says Alan Dean, six-time president of the Lakeshore Stamp Club, Canada's biggest. "I hate it. I hate the whole idea," says Dean. "It's truly horrible. Most of the philatelic community is really embarrassed to talk about it outside of Canada. Comparing these stamps to the rest of the world, they look really Mickey Mouse," he said. "They say that there's no political interference, and I say bullshit." :

more news...