More than 800 items are missing from the Canadian Museum of History

More than 800 items could be lost to historical memory after an audit of the Canadian Museum of History found the inventory missing and the corporation with no plans to deal with the issue.

The Office of the Auditor General of Canada produced the report, which was published on Thursday, that examined how the museum carried out its management practices and managed its operations.

Among the issues the audit found was what it called a “significant deficiency” in the museum’s conservation practices resulting in exposure of its collections to various risks, including no robust inventory management system.

According to the report, more than 800 items were declared missing between 2012 and 2022.

In addition, more than 300 items in the museum were not stored properly, and there were thousands more that had no source information — to the tune of more than 15,000.

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The report also found that there was a “lack of regular and systematic reviews” of electronic security access among staff to places such as vaults and other locations in which collections were stored.

“These findings matter because proper conservation and safeguarding help maintain historical artifacts for future generations, which is a fundamental component of the corporation’s mandate,” the report said.

It was not all negative, however, for the museum as the auditor general did write that it had good practices for corporate governance, strategic planning, and risk management — though it said improvements could still be made.

Overall, the auditor general said despite the weaknesses noted in the report — such as the hundreds of missing items — the Canadian Museum of History has reasonably maintained systems and practices to “carry out its mandate.”

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The corporation manages collections of more than four million objects within the Canadian Museum of History and Canadian War Museum.

The missing items are not the first such high-profile case for a Canadian institution.

The Royal Canadian Mint has faced thefts over recent years from employees, with one fired in 2018 after roughly $110,000 in gold was discovered missing from its facility in Ottawa.

Another Mint employee was accused in 2016 of smuggling roughly $180,000 of gold in his rectum.