In an Ottawa boardroom one summer afternoon in 2005, members of the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board leaned over a table stacked with applications. Paintings, pristine fragments from the Tagish Lake meteorite fall, and two late-18th-century Naskapi coats woven with cedar bark waited in silence. One wrong decision, and these pieces of national heritage could slip permanently abroad.

Between April 1, 2005, and March 31, 2006, the Board certified 769 applications worth more than $72 million. Donations made up 97.3 percent of the cases and $70.4 million of the value. At the same time, the export control system reviewed 237 permanent-permit requests. Expert examiners flagged 12. The Board rejected ten and imposed delay periods of two to six months. During those windows, Canadian institutions could bid.

Three items stayed home through purchases backed by federal grants. The Tagish Lake meteorites went to the University of Alberta and the Royal Ontario Museum. The Naskapi coats found a home at The Rooms Provincial Museum Division. In total, the grants program approved $1,163,680 for exactly these kinds of acquisitions.

The quiet machinery of tax incentives, export reviews, and targeted funding worked in tandem.

And right now, that same machinery still decides which stories stay on Canadian soil for the next generation to see.