The following pages contain information that are more specific to the broad topic of the Examination Unit. We encourage you to browse our sub-pages, "Creation of the Examination Unit", History of 345 Laurier Avenue", and "Life at the Examination Unit", to dive deeper in to the development and creation of Canada’s first civilian office for cryptology.
It was a unit was established in 1941 in Ottawa and worked primarily on decrypting and encrypting signal intelligence, primarily enemy militaries communications during the Second World War.[1] The Examination Unit (XU) would “…decipher content and disseminate intelligence to Canadian Foreign Affairs as well as to the Allies.”[2] The unit continued to exist under the National Research Council until 1946, when the unit was renamed the Communications Security Establishment.[3] The government at this time began to deny the Examination Unit’s existence and did so well until the 1970s.[4]