Patricia E. Roy

Patricia E. Roy, John Hart: A Businessman in British Columbia Politics. UBC Press, 2025.

Not every prominent political leader lends themselves to historical examination – not even those who have a hydroelectric dam and highway named after them. Patricia Roy has pinned down an important but elusive provincial leader. John Hart served as BC’s finance minister (1917-24 and 1933-46) and also as its premier (1941-47). He twice took over the treasury at economic crisis points. He led a wartime Liberal-Conservative coalition which helped set the conditions for the province’s postwar boom. Yet he has gone overlooked by historians.

Hart shunned the limelight. He usually maintained a low public profile, rarely spoke in the legislature or campaigned outside the Victoria region, and preferred to work behind the scenes. As befitting a politician who rejected the politics of personality, he left no personal papers. Roy has reconstructed his political career, and provided glimpses into his character, through meticulous research with newspapers, finance ministry records, and records from other governments. She shows that financial work was both his expertise and passion: he preferred managing sinking funds and re-negotiating the interest rate on debentures to ingratiating himself on the hustings or the thrust-and-parry of debate. By putting the spotlight on policy, compromise, and pragmatism, Roy deepens our understanding of a province with a political history more often characterized (and caricatured) by bombastic, polarizing, and eccentric personalities.