RCMP Heritage Centre seeks 20,000 names for museum push

Twenty thousand names.

That’s what the RCMP Heritage Centre hopes to have behind it when officials take the organization’s years-long push for national museum status back to Ottawa in early October.

The Regina-based non-profit has launched a petition calling on the federal government to take the final steps toward establishing the centre as a national museum.

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CEO Sam Karikas said the campaign builds on work that began years ago.

“We have taken these incremental steps towards being established as a national museum, and we are hoping that this petition just reaffirms for the Prime Minister’s Office just how much Canadians want this,” Karikas said.

The centre hopes to collect 20,000 signatures from across Canada before representatives travel to Ottawa for another round of meetings in early October.

Karikas said the petition is already approaching 3,000 signatures after roughly 10 days and was promoted publicly only a few days after it was created.

“In about eight days we’ve been able to capture 3,000 signatures from across Canada,” she said.

“We want signatures from all over Canada. We know that this is something that matters to people all over Canada.”

The push to establish a national RCMP museum dates back several years.

Karikas said the process began with a federal mandate letter in 2019, followed by investments in the project through the 2021 and 2024 federal budgets.

The federal government has since continued putting money toward the centre. Earlier this month, Ottawa announced more than $7.7 million through the Build Communities Strong Fund to rehabilitate and modernize the facility.

But the Heritage Centre currently remains a non-profit organization separate from the RCMP.

Karikas said becoming a national museum would allow it to expand how it explores the force’s history and its role in communities across Canada.

A historic horse-drawn wagon is part of the collection on display at Regina’s RCMP Heritage Centre. (Jacob Bamhour/980 CJME)

“There’s great opportunity to further explore the stories of early Canada, to further explore stories of service in communities that, as a national museum, would allow us to do,” she said.

“Right now, we operate as a nonprofit, so we’re a separate entity from the RCMP. We’re not owned, operated or funded by them, but we have a very important partnership.”

Karikas said the centre has been entrusted with preserving and sharing RCMP history, but believes national status would allow it to do that on a much larger scale.

“We think it’s really important Canadian history that isn’t being told anywhere else and can’t be told in the same way in any of the other national museums,” she said.

Historical artifacts and photographs are displayed inside the RCMP Heritage Centre in Regina. (Jacob Bamhour/980 CJME)

The latest campaign isn’t the first time the centre has asked Canadians what they think.

Karikas said more than 6,400 people from across Canada were surveyed in 2022 as part of the national museum project.

She said 91 per cent of those respondents considered it important or very important to have a national RCMP museum in Regina that recognizes the force’s contributions while also confronting difficult parts of its history.

Karikas said those responses helped shape a vision for a museum focused on “discovery, exploration, reflection and reconciliation.”

Now, the centre wants to turn that support into something officials can physically take with them to Ottawa.

“This is our attempt to kind of reinvigorate all of the support we know we have, and have something very tangible that we can take to show to the Prime Minister,” Karikas said.

For some people walking through the Regina museum, the push is highlighting something that has been sitting in their own backyard for years.

Jim Slew and his family live in Regina but hadn’t visited the Heritage Centre until his son came from the United States for a week and wanted to see it.

“We live in Regina, and I was wondering how many years this museum was here, and we didn’t come to see it until our son came from the States,” Slew said during the visit.

Anne and Jim Slew sit inside the RCMP Heritage Centre while touring its exhibits. The centre is seeking national museum status. (Jacob Bamhour/980 CJME)

The family said they were surprised by just how much there was to explore.

“We’re just fascinated, all the beautiful things to see and read. It’s just unreal,” Slew said.

The photographs particularly caught their attention.

“I’m kind of a photographer myself, and I’m amazed at the number of photographs there are,” Slew said.

Among the artifacts that stood out were homemade clubs from the Regina Riot of 1935.

A roughly 20-minute video showing RCMP training also left an impression.

Slew said a relative went through RCMP training in Regina and talked about how difficult it was.

“Seeing it today on the video, I just can’t believe,” Slew said.

The experience, he said, gave him “a whole new appreciation.”

Karikas hopes more Canadians will put their names behind the centre before officials make their October trip to Ottawa.

“Adding their signatures does make a difference,” she said.

“It’s really just building on the engagement that we’ve already had from people.”