CANADA POST

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OTTAWA, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Jan. 8, 2009) - Are you patient, trusting and down to earth? Do you inspire confidence and disdain laziness? If this sounds like you, you may be an Ox ... according to Chinese astrology, that is. Once again, the Lunar New Year is upon us and Canada Post has issued a number of special philatelic products to mark the beginning of the Year of the Ox.

Since the first release in 1997, the Lunar New Year stamps have proven to be one of the most successful stamp series ever at Canada Post. This second series will be significantly different from the initial one, and will continue to please collectors, stamp enthusiasts and celebrants of the Lunar New Year alike. Collectors in particular will note the long, scroll-like shape of the new souvenir sheet, an element that will remain consistent throughout this second 12-year series.

People born in the Year of the Ox are highly responsible, independent and inspire confidence, but at times may tend to be eccentric and somewhat gullible. Like their animal namesake, they are patient, tireless in their work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint.

You are an ox if you were born in 1913, 1925, 1937, 1949, 1961, 1973, 1985, 1997, or 2009. Famous oxen include Wayne Gretzky, Michael J. Fox, Douglas Coupland, Oscar Peterson, Margaret Thatcher, and President-elect Barack Obama.

The text on the stamps and other related products is in Chinese, English and French. The domestic rate stamp features an illustration of an ox before a mountainous landscape. Plum blossoms, a popular subject in Chinese art, are prominent throughout the background of the stamp. The international rate stamp, available only on the souvenir sheet, features a custom-made earthenware cooking pot created by potter Shu-Hwei Kao. The pot reinforces the Earth element, since the New Year that begins on January 26, 2009, is known as the Year of the Yin Earth Ox. "The landscape and tan earth tones in the background speak again to the earth element," explains designer Ivan Novotny of Toronto's Taylor|Sprules Corporation.

The PERMANENT^TM domestic rate stamp measures 32 mm x 32 mm (square) with 13+ perforations and will be sold in panes of 25. Lowe-Martin printed 7.5 million stamps, 750,000 souvenir sheets, 200,000 overprint souvenir sheets containing the China 2009 World Stamp Exhibition logo and 25,000 uncut press sheets each containing 12 souvenir sheets. The P.V.A. gum stamps will be printed using lithography in six colours, plus two foil stampings and embossing (by Gravure Choquet) as well as varnish on Tullis Russell paper and are general tagged on all sides. The Official First Day Cover will bear the cancel Toronto, Ontario.

Additional information about Canadian stamps can be found in the News section of Canada Post's website, and photos of these new stamps are also available. Stamps and other products will be available at participating post offices, or can be ordered online by following the links at Canada Post's website www.canadapost.ca, or by mail order from the National Philatelic Centre. From Canada and the USA, call toll-free: 1 800 565-4362, and from other countries, call: 902 863-6550.