Why I called it "The Unfortunate Four"

This is Nathan Scott's response when asked to reconsider the naming of his art piece.

Hello Everyone,

I named this sculpture ‘The Unfortunate Four,’ because I think they really are unfortunate. When I talked it over with Jim Rodger, he agreed with me.

I’ll start with Abbott. Sir John A MacDonald 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, 47 years old when he takes office, and 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.’ 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 6 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 Ministers’ 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!

Jim Rodger and 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 Ministers, starting with Sir John A MacDonald were being tarred and feathered as a Movement and had their sculptures hauled down. I crated up my 4 Unfortunate fellows, and without so much as a professional photo being taken of my largest commission that I was so pleased with, they were shipped off to a warehouse where they sat for the next 6+ years, waiting for some glimmer of appreciation for their service.

I am so excited to be able to finally unveil my Unfortunate Four. So yes, I’d like to keep the name. I’m rather partial to these unfortunate four.

Thanks for your understanding.

Nathan