I did a somewhat cursory digging into our past prime ministers and it would appear they had their challenges, too.

Among them was Sir John Sparrow David Thompson (1845-1894), the fourth prime minister of Canada.

He was born in Nova Scotia, was called to the bar in 1865, was elected to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly in 1877 as Conservative, and a year later became the Attorney General.

Thompson went on to become Premier of Nova Scotia in 1882 for two months but lost to the Liberals in the general election. Then he was appointed to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court and was instrumental in founding the Dalhousie Law School, where he also taught law courses in its earlier years.

Thompson entered federal politics at the personal request of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald and became Minister of Justice and was instrumental in drafting the Canadian Criminal Code.

Thompson began to rise in popularity when he made his first major speech to Parliament. He argued that anyone who encouraged an insurrection, a violent uprising against authority, could not escape the penalty of the law.

And so it was his decision that saw Louis Riel hanged for leading the 1885 North-West Rebellion.

After the death of Macdonald, Thompson refused the offer to be prime minister because he was a Roman Catholic.

But a year later after Prime Minister John Abbott retired, Thompson accepted the offer to form a Conservative government while continuing as the nation’s attorney general.

One of the big concerns while in office was the question of the annexation of Canada by the United States, an idea pursued by a group of Ontario and Quebec Liberals, the Continental Union Association. Thompson was one of the judges on the tribunal, in Paris, which concluded there was no justification for the American claim that the Bering Sea hunt was exclusive to them. Thompson dealt with the lowering of trade tariffs and also dealt with the divisive administration of Protestant and Catholic schools in Manitoba.

It was while visiting Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle and just having been awarded a member of the Privy Council that Thompson died of a heart attack. He was 49.