Research Enterprises Limited

Research Enterprises Limited (REL for short) was a short-lived Toronto-based Crown Corporation that built electronics and optical instruments during World War II. They existed only six years from late 1940 until 1946, and active only from late 1941, but during that period they became Leaside's largest employer, producing C$220 million worth of radar systems and optical instruments ($3,005 million in 2017). After the war, the government rapidly closed the various wartime companies it had started. After REL was closed, their factories formed the basis of a Corning Glass plant, Philips Electronics, and a variety of other firms. Today only a few of the original buildings still stand, used primarily for light industrial and small commercial enterprises.

In August 1939, General Andrew McNaughton, President of the National Research Council (NRC), asked the head of the NRC's Optics Section, L.E. Howlett, to prepare a report on how to set up an optics industry in Canada. McNaughton remembered the acute shortages of any sort of optical equipment in World War I and intended to address this. Howlett returned a report on 11 September, stating that the first task should be to visit their US counterparts in the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) and ask their advice. McNaughton immediately approved his plan, and Howlett left for Washington, DC on the 13th.

In Washington, Howlett found that his counterparts at the NBS had faced exactly the same problem in World War I, and were happy to provide complete details of their solutions. On his way back to Ottawa, Howlett visited Bausch and Lomb (B&L) in Rochester and Spencer Lens (of the American Optical Company) in Buffalo, both of whom were equally forthcoming with information. Howlett completed his report to McNaughton in October. McNaughton took the report to the Government, but found them unwilling to provide funds.

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