caption monarch lieutenant_governor predecessor successor death_date birth_place death_place religion party birth_date order term_start spouse image article_title term_end name
hon. john hart -lrb- 2nd to the right -rrb- george vi william c. woodward charles arthur banks thomas dufferin pattullo byron ingemar johnson 07 april 1957 mohill , county leitrim , ireland victoria , british columbia catholic british columbia liberal party 31 march 1879 23rd premier of british columbia december 9 , 1941 harriett -lrb- mackay -rrb- file : kingpremiers1945.jpg john hart -lrb- canadian politician -rrb-
 december 29 , 1947 john hart
john hart -lrb- canadian politician -rrb-

john hart -lrb- 31 march 1879 , in mohill , county leitrim , ireland -- 7 april 1957 , victoria , british columbia -rrb- 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 .
after 1945 , hart undertook an ambitious program of rural electrification , hydroelectric and highway construction .
hart 's most significant projects were the construction of highway 97 to northern british columbia -lrb- which is named in his honour -rrb- and the re-launch of the bridge river power project , which was the first major hydroelectric development in british columbia .
he established the bc power commission , a forerunner of bc hydro , to provide power to smaller communities that were not serviced by private utilities .
in december 1947 , he retired as both finance minister and premier .
hart was named speaker for the assembly in 1948 .
he did not seek reelection in 1949 and returned to business .
hart was one of the few bc premiers who left office neither defeated nor under a cloud .
he died in victoria in 1957 , aged 78 years , having led a distinguished life of public service .
he is interred in the royal oak burial park in saanich .
the 405 km john hart highway between prince george and dawson creek is named for him , as is the hart highlands neighbourhood of prince george and the john hart dam -lrb- hydroelectric -rrb- in campbell river .
