John Hart

Who was John Hart?

John Hart was the 23rd Premier of British Columbia, Canada, from December 9, 1941 to December 29, 1947.

The son of an Irish farmer who was also named John Hart, he came to Victoria in 1898.

Hart worked in the finance industry and founded his own firm in 1909. In 1908, he married Harriet McKay. He entered politics in the 1916 election, elected to the provincial legislature as a Liberal member from Victoria City. He served as minister of finance from 1917 to 1924, and from 1933 to 1947. Hart retired from politics to attend to his business from 1924 to 1933.

Hart became premier following the 1941 election when Pattullo's Liberals failed to win a majority. Unlike Pattullo, Hart was willing to form a coalition government with the Conservative Party. This allowed the Liberal-Conservative Coalition to govern with a majority in order to block the socialist Cooperative Commonwealth Federation from forming the government.

From 1941 to 1945, Hart governed at a time of wartime scarcity, when all major government projects were postponed. Hart's coalition government was re-elected in the 1945 election by a decisive margin. In that contest, Liberals and Conservatives ran under the same banner for the first time in BC history.