Not To Be Trusted With Knives

BC Premier #22 – John Hart

May 30, 2010 by Beth

So, yeah, remember like a million years ago when I was writing a series of postings on BC Premiers – one posting every Sunday – as an excuse to learn a bit about BC history?  And then I kind of just didn’t do it for the last eight months?  Well, I’ve decided to start doing it again.  And I’m really going to stick to it this time! No, really.  Anyway, here goes!

The 22nd Premier of the Province of British Columbia – John Hart.  Not to be mistaken for John Hart, John Hart, Johnny Hart, John Hart, or any of the other fourteen John Harts that are notable enough to have Wikipedia pages written about them.

	Name	John Hart
	Born:	March 31, 1879 in Mohill, County Leitrim, Ireland
	Died:	April 7, 1957 in Victoria, British Columbia
	Party:	Liberal
	Held Office:	December 9, 1941 – December 29, 1947

• 1916 – elected as MLA for Victoria City
• 1917-1924 and  1933-1947 – served as Minister of Finance
• 1941 – the Liberals failed to win a majority government and then leader Thomas Dufferin Patullo refused to for a coaltion government, so he was ousted and Hart, who was willing to form a coaltion, became the premier.  He lead the government through the WWII years and couldn’t really do much in terms of government projects, which were postponed because of the lack of money due to the war
• 1945 –  re-elected as the leader of the Liberal-Conservative parties, which ran under the same banner for the first time.  Making up for those postponed government, Hart embarked on ambituous projects, like “rural electrification, hydroelectric and highway construction.”
• He established the BC Power Commission, the predecessor to the current BC Hydro
• Dec 1947 – retired from politics and returned to the business world from whence he came
• Things named after Hart:
  • the John Hart Highway between Prince George and Dawson Creek
  • the Hart Highlands neighbourhood of Prince George, BC
  • the John Hart Dam in Campbell River, BC

In summary, John Hart was one of the few BC premiers who didn’t leave office in either defeat or disgrace. Which probably explains why the only information I can find about him online is a Wikipedia page with no references.

Image credits: From Wikipedia. In the public domizzle. w00t!

References:
Wikipedia, the reference of champions

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