A biography of J.L. Ilsley, whose policies financed Canadian participation in the Second World War, transformed the national income tax system, and laid the financial basis for the modern welfare state.

J.L. Ilsley, Canada’s Minister of Finance from 1940 to 1946, was responsible for financing the country’s participation in World War II. A Wartime Finance Minister tells the story of how Ilsley’s measured leadership transformed the tax system and established the financial basis of the modern welfare state.

Between 1939 and 1943, Canada’s war effort boosted federal spending and revenue tenfold, a commitment Ilsley financed by borrowing through Victory Bond campaigns and extending income tax to most of the working population at sharply progressive rates. Agreements made with the provinces in 1941 became the foundation of modern federal-provincial fiscal relations. Ilsley preached that the war required high but fair taxes, wage and price controls, and frugality, winning public confidence in his measures partly through his own example of self-sacrifice. As this compelling account of his life and career reveals, his promotion and defense of these policies brought lasting benefit to Canada.