Unspeakable tragedies you didn’t know about Canada’s prime ministers

1. John Alexander Macdonald (one of the 36 Confederation Fathers)

His mother, Helen suffered a stroke, and his sister, Louisa, had an influenza while he and Isabella Clark, his first wife whom he married in 1843, were in their honeymoon years.

To soothe the debilitating pain of her mysterious illness with limbs tingling and headaches, she started using opium and alcohol. According to award-winning author Richard Gwyn, Isabella became bed-ridden and opium dependent for the most of the 14 years of marriage with him.

She gave birth to a healthy boy named John. Unfortunately, he died after 13 months. Experts suggested the death was caused by a fall or possibly from complications due to her drug dependency while pregnant. 

Isabella Clark, Prime Minister John Macdonald's first wife.

She then had an extended bout of dysentery which forced her to using opium again. She died in 1857.

With these family mantle of grief that caused so much psychological and financial burdens, Macdonald drank heavily.

He married his second wife, Susan Agnes Bernard in 1867. They had a daughter, Margaret Mary Theodora Macdonald, who was diagnosed with hydrocephalus, a condition in which fluid accumulates in the brain, enlarging the head that can cause brain damage.

Macdonald’s daughter-in-law, Jean Murray King, wife of Hugh John Macdonald, his only surviving son, had a fragile health after giving birth to Isabella Mary "Daisy" Macdonald in 1877. Jean died in 1881.

Macdonald suffered a stroke after a heavily contested election that his party won in 1891. He was partially paralyzed and unable to speak. He died three months later while in office. He was buried close to his first wife’s grave.

Hugh John’s skin infection necessitated to amputate one of his legs. When the infection reappeared, he refused a second amputation.

Daisy Macdonald married a British engineer and they had two children, but the younger boy developed spinal meningitis and died.

2. Alexander Mackenzie  

He married Helen Neil in 1845 and they had three children. Unfortunately, two of whom died in infancy.

She died in 1852 due to overdose of mercury-based calomel used to treat her fever.

He was struck with a mysterious sickness that took his voice two years after his government was defeated by the Conservatives in 1878. He died of stroke six years later after hitting his head during a fall in Toronto.  

3. John Abbott  

More than a year serving as prime minister, he suffered from the early stages of cancer of the brain and he retired from public office in 1892. He died almost a year later in Quebec. 

4. John Sparrow David Thompson  

His first and seventh child both died at birth.

He died from a heart attack two years after he succeeded John Abbott due to his exhausting work style. Gwyn has this description of him: '[He] worked impossibly hard, never exercised, and consumed inordinate amounts of food. Though only five foot seven, he pushed his weight to 225 pounds.'

5. Mackenzie Bowell 

His fourth and fifth child lived for two weeks and three months, respectively.

He died of pneumonia in Belleville, Ontario.

6. Charles Tupper (one of the 36 Confederation Fathers)

He died from heart failure in England.

7. Henri Charles Wilfrid Laurier  

His mother died of tuberculosis long before he began elementary schooling.

According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, he had chronic bronchitis while attending McGill College, which frequently confined him to bed and brought him to the brink of depression. 

He died of stroke in Ottawa. 

8. Robert Laird Borden  

He died of congestive heart failure in Ottawa.   

9. Arthur Meighen  

He died from heart failure in Toronto.

10. William Lyon Mackenzie King  

He died from pneumonia in Quebec. 

11. Richard Bedford Bennett  

He died after suffering a heart attack while taking a bath in England.

12. Louis Stephen St-Laurent 

He died from heart failure in Quebec.

13. John George Diefenbaker  

Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and Olive Evangeline, his second wife.

He and his uncle suffered frostbite when they spent the night huddled in their horse's sleigh after losing their 3.5 miles way home due to raging blizzard.

He and his brother, Elmer, used to be pounced by a gang of bullies on their way to school. Elmer fought with them twice a day until Diefenbaker, whose daily chores include bringing a wagonload of grain to the railroad line, gave them a sound trashing and they avoided the brothers.

He suffered from gastric illness while practicing as a criminal lawyer years before becoming the head of government. 

Edna Brower, his first wife, had suffered from severe depression for several months. She was diagnosed with acute leukaemia in 1950 and died months later. 

He died of a heart attack in Ottawa.

14. Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson  

He died in Ottawa due to a cancer that had caused the loss of his right eye.

15. Joseph Philippe Pierre Elliott Trudeau 

Pierre suffered from Parkinson's disease, prostate cancer and pneumonia. He died in Quebec with his sons, Justin Pierre James (who became the 23rd prime minister) and Sacha, and his ex-wife, Margaret Joan Sinclair, at his side.

Michel, Pierre’s youngest son, died in an avalanche in 1998, at age 23, while skiing with friends in Kokanee Glacier Park, one of British Columbia’s oldest provincial parks. An extensive rescue failed to recover him due to punishing weather conditions. The Trudeau family created a chalet nearby as a memorial to him.

Michel’s tragic accident devastated Margaret. Sources say the deaths of Michel and Pierre significantly contributed to her major depression that led to her second divorce. She is now an honorary patron of the Canadian Mental Health Association.

Note:

All pictures taken from http://collectionscanada.gc.ca

References

Dictionary of Canadian Biography. www.biographi.ca/en/bio/laurier_wilfrid_14E.html. 

Gwyn, Richard. 2011. Nation Maker Sir John A. Macdonald: His Life, Out Times. Volume Two: 1867-1891. Vintage Canada Edition.

Newman, Peter C. 1964. Renegade in Power: The Diefenbaker Years. McLelland and Stewart Limited.

Sarnia Historical Society.www.sarniahistoricalsoceity.com/story/alexander-mackenzie-second-prime-minister/

www.thewhig.com/2010/01/13/macdonalds-first-wife

Wikipedia files

Mulan 2020 review: regardless of political fallout, this live-action movie is a flop

It has a whooping $200 million budget, but the long-awaited, politically-dragged live-action film Mulan, based on the Chinese folklore of the same name, isn't bad--but not good enough. This Disney-produced remake has unsuspensive playing-safe-than-sorry story-telling, unreliving conversions of those adorable scenes that make the classic 1998 Mulan 1 animation film delighting. 

The new film created a younger sister of Mulan. It should have been the-more-the-merrier case. But lamentably, some adorable characters, like the dog and the ever amusing granny Fa were axed.  

Hua (Fa in the old movie) Mulan's first love, the mascular Captain Li Shang, commander of the camp where she was training, was unceremoniously obliterated--just to make it sure there would be no 'imbalance of power' love affair between them. This is a mortal mistake committed by its director, Niki Caro. It totally contradicts to the famous 'All is fair in love and war' of Eupheus. Which makes it tragically less romantic.

If Mulan producers' main agenda is to educate humanity about equality and women empowerment, the very first thing that should have been eliminated is the ugly and unholy matchmaking subplot (which is the main theme of the disastrous Mulan 2 in 2004). Netflix did a very good in the Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl.  

Classical stories have their own fathomable glories and unique makeup that withstand the test of time, and transcend cultures and borders. Retelling them shouldn't meant to preach a salacious political intercourse unionizing with the changing taste of a decadent mob. 

To make her disguise convincing as a male trainee, Mulan cut her long hair in the 1998 film. Caro may have a noble idea by not cutting Mulan's hair (you'd see it on its semiclimax, when Mulan revealed her beautiful long hair and removed her male disguise). But in reality, it boils down to show a great lack of intelligence of the Mountain Steppe Garrison commander Tung Yong, a decorated war veteran and former comrade of Mulan's father, that he can't even tell whether a recruit is a male or female. Caro just assumed the viewers as a nightwalker brainless. More importantly, it would be a shallow, shortsighted resort if one equates coming out by just revealing the tangible, physical attributes. Even the Little Prince knows that what's essential is invisible to the eyes.  

The absence of comic antics by Mulan's fellow trainees, Yao, Ling, and Chien-Po, is glaring, which is characteristically unusual as Walt Disney Pictures is known for masterpieces  that make your heart laugh. I really missed the amusing brawl amongst the trainees. Which makes the movie less humorous.

An interesting Silk Road subplot was employed in the new movie. The Han emperor's chancellor understimated the plot of the Rourans, a notorious confederation of northern pillagers from the 4th-6th century (in the old film, they were the Huns, a band of nomadic warriors), and thought that they were plundering the Silk Road to amass high-valued golds and goods. So the emperor, instead of staging an all out war to repel the northerners' barbaric acts, just sent a pocket force to repel them. Slowly but ferociously, the first four battalions of the Imperial army, including their garrisons, were annihilated by the Rourans.   

I must admit the director made a brilliant military strategy in the new Mulan. When Commander Tung's 5th Battalion was overwhelmed by the invading Rourans led by Bori Khan (he was Shan Yu in the old movie), Mulan tricked them to fire the trebuchet at a snowy mountain, triggering an avalanche that sunk the enemies. In the old movie, when the imperial army was reinforcing a massacred Imperial batallion, they were ambushed by the Huns, but Mulan cleverly used a huolongchushui cannon to cause an avalanche, which buried most of the invaders. 

The new movie's writers did a historically correct job when they use a trebuchet, instead of huolongchushui, as a weapon of mass destruction in the battle scenes. The former was invented in 4th century, the later, in 14th century.

Another interesting twist is when Mulan uncovered that the attack on 5th Battalion, which they repelled, was just a ploy of Bori's elaborate invasion plan to sneak in the palace, kill the emperor, and invade the Imperial City. But the ensuing clashes unbelievably lacked intricacy and intensity. There weren't much breathtaking stunts and fights ala Great Wall movie, considering that the Rourans were trying to kill the highest man in the land. Which makes it miserably less exciting.

Adding Jet Li as the emperor is pretentious, and doesn't do  justice to him. He's too young for the role; remember that he already killed Bori's father in the first war and humiliated the Rourans. With a good makeup, Ken Watanabe could be the best choice for the role.

The makeup artists and propsmen did an unbelievable job by making Mulan (played by Liu Yifei) look like a beauty queen even when she's fighting--and not a warrior that she should be. I'd like to believe though that Liu was selected among the 1,000 candidates for the role not only because she can cry naturally, and younger than Michelle Yeoh. But Liu is better than Lucy Liu (remember Lucy, she doesn't wanna 'look like a little Filipino').

The gravest mistake of all and the most injustice done was when Lea Salonga, a Tony Award winner and Filipina singer, was not retained to perform Reflection for the movie's theme song. It's a crystal clear 'whitewashing,' the practice of putting white performers in roles originally done by or meant to performers of colors. In late 2016, a petition to prevent whitewashing of the new Mulan has reached 90,000 signatures. It forced Disney to launch a global search for a Chinese actress to portray the title role. 

As a matter of fact, Lea recorded Reflection in 1997 as a part of Mulan 1's soundtrack which was released on June 19, 1998. Christina Aguilera did a single version of the song in late 1998 and became her debut single. She did a re-recording of the song on August 28, 2020. 

With Lea as the singer of Mulan 1's Reflection, it earned a worldwide gross of $304 million with just $90 million budget. Let's just ignore the disastrous Mulan 2 that's a total failure in the box office. As of this writing, the live-action Mulan has just earned some $37 million. With its less-than-stellar production and Covid scare, the movie grossing $300 million worldwide could be a tall order. 

A voice-over in the new Mulan says: 'That a daughter would risk shame, dishonor, exile?'

In Mulan 1 found the answer: 'The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all. You don't meet a girl like that every dynasty.'