OTTAWA, ON, September 28, 1999 - The National Council of Veteran Associations, representing 36 of the mostly-smaller veterans groups across Canada, today asked the Prime Minister, in an extensive letter, to review the controversy surrounding the proposal to build a new $80 million War Museum on a site near the abandoned Rockcliffe Air Base on the eastern outskirts of Ottawa.

The letter, submitted by Chair Cliff Chadderton, expressed the fear that officials of the Canadian Museum of Civilization Corporation may have created a difficult situation for the Government by putting forward an expensive proposal which may be beyond the funds which the Government can justifiably spend at this time.

The letter suggests that if the Government rejects the current proposal, veterans may lose the momentum which developed out of Hearings of the Senate Sub-Committee on the issue in February of 1998.

Those Hearings saw the officials of the Museum Corporation withdraw their plans to include an extensive Holocaust exhibit in the War Museum, after the Senators heard that the plan lacked approval not only from veterans, but from the representatives of the Jewish community.

The NCVA letter forwarded to the Prime Minister included a copy of an earlier letter sent to Heritage Minister Sheila Copps which suggested that the Government had had ample time to make a decision.

Following the dispatch of this letter, however, an interview with Professor Jack Granatstein, Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian War Museum, appeared to indicate that the Government plan was dead. Prof. Granatstein, in referring to the difficulty of raising funds from the public sector, suggested that "In truth, the State should pay for the National Museums."