MONTREAL — Canada launched a new postage stamp Tuesday honoring Pierre Trudeau, the former prime minister who died of cancer last year.
Trudeau’s son Justin, 29, joked at the ceremony that the stamp means “a lot of people will have the opportunity to lick my father’s back,” drawing a laugh from the crowd of 600 at the University of Montreal.
The stamp shows Trudeau wearing a cape with a red rose in his lapel. The image comes from a portrait of Trudeau in the Parliament building.
Trudeau, who died at age 80 on Sept. 28, was prime minister for almost all of a 16-year stretch from 1968 to 1984.
His sophisticated, sometimes irreverent style fascinated and captivated his country, seeming to personify the dynamic political and social changes in North America.
So strong was his personality and influence that Trudeau was chosen Canada’s newsmaker of the century in a Canadian Press-Broadcast News poll of editors and broadcasters in December 1999.
Photography by Jean-Marc Carisse, Ottawa.
