But the Canadian postal tribute to Franklin — plotter of the would-be conquest of Quebec during the Revolutionary War — is not some colossal printing error.
The new stamp recognizes the fact that Franklin, as deputy postmaster of Britain’s North American colonies in the 1750s and 1760s — prior to the U.S. fight for independence — personally inaugurated a post office in Halifax in 1753 and later initiated the first official mail service between Quebec, Trois-Rivières and Montreal on June 10, 1763, exactly 250 years ago on Monday.
“He’s noted for his contributions in the U.S.,” Canada Post spokesman Jon Hamilton told Postmedia News. “But in Canada, to say that postal service really started with a guy named Benjamin Franklin — yes, that Benjamin Franklin — it catches a lot of people off guard. It’s a reminder of how big a role he had to play in laying the foundation what we enjoy today.”
Franklin, a newspaper publisher by trade, had begun serving as Philadelphia’s postmaster in 1737 and eventually organized postal service throughout the British colonies in North America.
In 1763, following Britain’s victory over New France in the Seven Years’ War, Franklin travelled to Quebec City and hired merchant Hugh Finlay to run mail delivery between Quebec, Montreal and Trois Rivières.
The stamp being issued Monday shows Franklin’s portrait superimposed on a vintage scene of Quebec City. Finlay’s watermark symbol of a horse and rider — the chief means of mail delivery in 1763 — appears at the top the new stamp.
Via New York and other routes, Canada’s fledgling postal system was soon integrated in a continent-spanning delivery network that stretched as far south as Florida, while Halifax remained an important hub for mail being shipped between North America and Britain.
Franklin’s starring role on Canada Post’s 250th anniversary stamp follows many such tributes to the renowned statesman in the United States. His portrait is featured on the U.S. $100 bill and his image appeared on the first American postage stamp — issued in 1847 — in recognition of his appointment as the first U.S. postmaster in July 1775, a year before he helped write and signed the Declaration of Independence.
Hamilton notes that the new stamp celebrating Canada Post’s 18th-century roots comes at a time of major upheaval for the Crown corporation. A recent Conference Board of Canada report commissioned by Canada Post highlighted how declining volumes of letter mail and the “rapid expansion of e-commerce” are making parcel delivery ever-more central to the postal service’s future.
“Canadians still need a postal service. What has changed is how and why they need it,” the report concluded. “The post office was once an essential sinew of nation-building, the primary means of enabling Canadians to communicate with one another from coast to coast to coast. The core demand for postal service now flows from its ability to move physical goods rather than information.”
Reminding Canadians that Canada Post’s origins reach back to the time Benjamin Franklin should offer reassurance, Hamilton suggested, about its ability to adapt to new technologies and commercial contexts.
“If our first deputy postmaster was Benjamin Franklin,” he said, “well, that clearly happened a long time ago. We’ve done nothing but change ever since. Canadians are expecting the same from us now as they were 250 years ago. It opens up a great conversation.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Randy Boswell
I know that this is a late response, but Ben Franklin was also on a Canada Post stamp in 1976 to honor the US Bicentennial. The US Postal Service issued an almost identical stamp that year. Both stamps featured a profile of Mr Franklin and a background map of the Great Lakes, the state of New York and parts of Ontario and Quebec. The US coloration was blue while the Canadian version was a light brown. Both stamps were issued the same day. The US stamps was 13c cents while the Canada stamp was 10 cents. Both nations issued joint first day covers as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the input.
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