Canada Post honors Brian Mulroney, Canada’s 18th prime minister

By David Hartwig

Canada Post unveiled and issued a stamp March 21 to honor Canada’s 18th prime minister, Brian Mulroney (1939-2024).

“Mulroney, who served as prime minister from 1984 to 1993, believed that Canadian democracy ‘is advanced by the collision of great ideas and the articulation of competing visions of the country,’ ” Canada Post said in a March 20 press release.

The design of the nondenominated permanent-rate stamp (currently $1.24) shows a smiling Mulroney in a photograph taken by Bill McCarthy, Mulroney’s former official photographer and father of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s photographer Adam Scotti.

The stamp issue continues Canada Post’s tradition of recognizing the accomplishments of former prime ministers.

Mulroney served two terms as prime minister from 1984 to 1993. He won Conservative majorities in both the 1984 and 1988 federal elections, something that had not been done by any Canadian party since 1953.

Mulroney’s Conservative government ushered in privatizations, tax reforms, deregulations and a reduction of government expenditures. The government implemented a goods and services tax (GST) to replace the manufacturers’ sales tax.

He opened Canada’s economic borders with the 1989 Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, superseded by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 and then the agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada (USMCA) in 2020.

During his tenure Mulroney saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and worked to reunify Germany afterwards. He supported sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa, setting him apart from leaders in the United States and Britain.

In 1991 he helped to facilitate the Air Quality Agreement between the United States and Canada, which addressed transborder air pollution that causes acid rain and contributes to smog.

“Some of Mulroney’s initiatives including free trade and the GST were undoubtedly controversial at the time,” Canada Post said. “However, today many Canadians regard these policies as key to Canada’s economic progress in the decades that followed.”

Mulroney died Feb. 29, 2024, at the age of 84. His state funeral at the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal was attended by then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; former prime ministers Jean Chretien, Joe Clark, Stephen Harper and Kim Campbell; as well as former United Kingdom Prime Minister John Major.

A private unveiling for the Brian Mulroney stamp took place March 20 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

The stamp was designed by Paprika Design of Montreal, Quebec, using the photograph by McCarthy.

This same photograph appears on the cover of Mulroney's Memoirs: 1939-1993, published in 2007.

Colour Innovations printed the stamp in booklets of 10.

Canada Post’s official first-day cover is canceled in Mulroney’s birthplace of Baie-Comeau, Quebec.

The booklet and FDC are available from Canada Post.

Canada Post also offers items and by mail order from Canada Post Customer Service, Box 90022, 2701 Riverside Drive, Ottawa, ON K1V 1J8 Canada; or by telephone from the United States or Canada at 800-565-4362, and from other countries at 902-863-6550.

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