The unfortunate four

I am so excited to soon be able to introduce you to four guys, I affectionately call ‘The Unfortunate Four!’  I won't 'unveil' them to you before their covers come off...and that will be soon!  I wondered if I would ever see the day! 

Quite a few years ago I was approached by a committee who had the idea to create a park that would have all of Canada's Prime Ministers in bronze.  They decided each Prime Minister would have what they called 'easter eggs' sculpted into them so people could look at each one and find little clues included within the sculpture that had hints about each one's personality, beliefs, work, etc.  They began fundraising, and the Prime Minister's Park began.  Some of you may recall that I sculpted Sir Robert Borden, and he was unveiled back in 2017.  That was quite exciting for me because I actually have a connection to the Borden family, and some of them lived a stone's throw from my house at the time, in Saanich, Victoria.  I was able to have one of Sir Robert Borden's very great nephews actual model for me for the sculpture of his famous ancestor!

After that, the committee asked me to sculpt 4 Prime Ministers at once.  Not many have ever heard of these guys because all four were in and out of office within 5 years!  Because of this, the committee decided to have them sculpted in conversation with each other.  I affectionally began calling them 'The Unfortunate Four,' because they never really had their day in the sun.

Here is a bit of their stories, and the reason I call them 'unfortunate.'
 
I’ll start with Sir John Abbott.  Sir John A MacDonald-who most Canadians are pretty good at recalling as our first Prime Minister, dies in his second term of a stroke and Abbott steps in.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t interested in being the Prime Minister.  Shortly before stepping in, he is quoted as saying, “"I hate politics, and what are considered their appropriate methods. I hate notoriety, public meetings, public speeches, caucuses and everything that I know of that is apparently the necessary incident of politics, except doing public work to the best of my ability."   His explanation of why he became Prime Minister is: "I am there because I am not particularly obnoxious to anybody."  He’s already 70 years old, and soon after he becomes Prime Minister, Canada goes into recession.  He was in office for 17 months, retiring due to poor health (brain cancer)  and unfortunately he dies less than a year later. 
 
Sir John Thompson takes over.  He is the Prime Minister for 2 years and 8 days.  He’s the youngest of these four at 47 years old when he takes office, and he has the great honour of going to Windsor Castle in England and being sworn into Queen Victoria’s Imperial Privy Council.  Unfortunately, just after he is sworn in, he has a heart attack and dies right there in Windsor Castle!  He’s the only Prime Minister to die while in office on foreign soil.
 
Sir Mackenzie Bowell takes over immediately.  Unfortunately, he’s got a chip on his shoulder and is really hard to work with-not a nice person, apparently.  He’s the only Protestant out of these 4 PMs.  The main issue of the day is funding for Catholic schools in the ‘Manitoba Schools Question,’ so being a protestant doesn't help.  Seven ministers in his own cabinet resign all at once and denounce him as incompetent.  He is in office for one year, four months and six days before he is forced out of office.  Unfortunately, he was just the wrong man for the job!
 
Sir Charles Tupper has the office handed over to him.  Unfortunately, he’s only going to last 68 days-Canada’s shortest serving Prime Minister.  He never faced Parliament and lost the federal election later that year.

Unfortunately, these four Prime Minister’s stories are largely forgotten in our history because they are largely unremarkable.  Because they were in and out of office within 5 years, not much was accomplished for Canada during this time.  I found all of them on a list of 10 ‘Worst Canadian Prime Ministers of All Time.’  Laurier comes along with a lot of vision and is in office accomplishing much for the next 15 years! 
    
The commissioning team decided we should sculpt all of these guys as a group because no one really knew who they were.  At least they would finally get their day in the sun for their service to Canada.  I was very excited to sign the contract on July 1, 2019 for my largest commission to date.  They were to be unveiled on a sunny day in June.  June 20, it was.  June 20, 2020.  We all know where we were in June of 2020, and it wasn’t at a sculpture unveiling of 4 unfortunate and forgotten Prime Ministers!  No.  Unfortunately we were at the height of Covid, watching the news as Prime Minister sculptures were being hauled down.  I crated up my 4 unfortunate fellows, and without so much as a professional photo being taken of my largest commission to date that I was so pleased with, they were shipped off to a warehouse where they ...unfortunately... sat for the next 6+ years, waiting for some glimmer of appreciation for their service to Canada.
  
I am beyond excited to announce that we will finally be unveiling my Unfortunate Four!  I’m rather partial to my these four fellows.  I'm REALLY hoping to have photos soon!