[Robert Dabkowski]

Sean, care to backup your comments with an actual example of when and where this kind of thing happened in Canada ? Something that can be verified rather than just "a friend of a friend of mine's second cousins brother told him that ............".

Bet you can't.

Actually, most museum items (and certainly if a tax receipt was issued) are on a "Designated Artifacts" List. The museum curator (and hence the Base Commander) are PERSONNALLY liable to fines/imprisonment if any item on the DA List goes missing. And there ARE boffins that show up every other year to do spot checks. I was at the Base Borden Museum when just such an audit took place. A cute little girl showed up from Ottawa unannounced, pulled out a computer printout, flipped thru it at random, pointed to an item without looking to see what it was and said, "Show me this, now !" Fortunately the WW2 U-boat brass binoculars set was only on the third rack up and amazingly the serial numbers matched. I think she worked for the Auditor General and we know what a bulldog that lady is. Checked 88 items and went away as happy as a clam.

This is not to say that there are no criminals at all in the system BUT "good stuff" is NOT as casually handled as you suggest.

Man, it seems that everyone on this list hates the Museums. Lighten up guys. They are just a bunch of poor slobs like us, trying to save some history for a public/government that doesn't care.

Robert in Toronto