J.L. Ilsley, federal finance minister from 1940 to 1946, was responsible for financing Canadian participation in the Second World War. A Wartime Finance Minister tells the story of how his efforts to do so 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 the measures partly through his own example of self-sacrifice.

As this compelling account of his life and career reveals, Ilsley’s promotion and defence of these policies brought lasting benefit to Canada.