SATURDAY,FEBRUARY22,2020 | THEGLOBEANDMAIL O Rß
BIRTHOFTHEFORCE
The Royal Canadian Mounted Po-
lice traces its lineage back to 1873,
when prime minister John A.
Macdonald won Parliament’s ap-
proval to create a police force that
would patrol the fledgling prov-
ince of Manitoba and the spraw-
ling Northwest Territories. Early
Mounties cracked down on whis-
key trading and played a key part
in policing the gold rush.
They also worked with local
First Nations and Métis guides
and scouts who knew the land
much better than the incoming
policemen.
Marty Klyne, a Regina busi-
nessman and former director of
the RCMP Heritage Centre who
was named to the Senate in 2018,
said some stories of conflicts be-
tween Indigenous communities
and the mounted police in the
early days have been blown out of
proportion over the years.
“Elders today will tell the story
of the red coat representing trust
and they hand that down to other
leaders,” said Klyne, who is a Cree
Métis. “Speaking to some of the
tribal chiefs, they still look at it
through that view.”
While those early officers
worked at times with members of
Indigenous communities, they
also enforced laws that were colo-
nial, Turpel-Lafond said. She
pointed, for example, to the fact
that mounted policemen took
children from their homes and
delivered them to residential
schools, where they were subject
to abuse and an attempted era-
sure of their culture.
“The [police] may not have
written the law,” she said, “but
they gleefully enforced it.”
Some residential schools were
still in operation up until the
1990s. The RCMP and the federal
government didn’t officially apol-
ogize for the practice until 2004
and 2008, respectively. Then the
government created the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission,
which collected the stories of resi-
dential-school survivors and ulti-
mately delivered a historic ac-
counting of the damage the prac-
tice had delivered upon tens of
thousands of vulnerable chil-
dren.
Meanwhile, the RCMP were
working on recognizing their
own history.
For years, the police force had
artifacts from its own storied past
on display on the grounds of De-
pot, the academy in Regina
through which all new recruits
must pass. But community lead-
ers and officers thought it de-
served a dedicated space. A group
of former Mounties called the
Friends of the Mounted Police
Museum formed in 1988. Depot’s
then-commanding officer, Andre
Gauthier, and the mayor of Regi-
na, Doug Archer, began talking
about an institution dedicated to
the RCMP’s history in the early
1990s.
In 2007, the RCMP Heritage
Centre finally opened. The mu-
seum tells the story of the RCMP
through permanent exhibits and
interactive displays, such as a po-
lice-cruiser driving simulator.
ËWEARETELLIN
ANATIONALSTORY’
Dan Toppings, a 25-year veteran
of the force and the Heritage Cen-
tre’s executive director, said the
centre has long sought support
from the federal government.
But, he said, it wasn’t until last
year’s election campaign that it fi-
nally got traction. During the
campaign, both the Liberals and
Conservatives promised to make
the Regina centre a national mu-
seum – a designation that would
come with an influx of new feder-
al money.
“I think they finally realized
that even though we aren’t situat-
ed in Ottawa, we are telling a na-
tional story,” Mr. Toppings said.
The Heritage Centre is its own
non-profit organization, with a
board of directors and a current
staff of eight full-time employees.
The centre gets some of its fund-
ing from municipal and provin-
cial governments, admission fees
and selling concessions to cadets.
But the bulk of its funding comes
from the RCMP, who pay a rental
fee to the centre for keeping their
collections on site. And those arti-
facts – as well as the curators who
look after them – are on the po-
lice force’s payroll.
Victor Rabinovitch, who ran
the national war and history mu-
seums in Ottawa from 2000 to
2011, said a museum can be ham-
pered in what stories it can tell if it
isn’t truly independent.
“The owner of the collection
has considerable control over
how the collection is used, how
it’s shown, whether it’s shown,”
Rabinovitch said.
The government, the RCMP
and the Heritage Centre say it’s
still too early in negotiations to
say what will happen when the
facility becomes a national mu-
seum. It could be designated an
independent Crown corporation,
like the Canadian Museum of Im-
migration at Pier 21 in Halifax. Or
it could be folded under the um-
brella of the Museum of History,
which is in Gatineau. And it’s still
to be decided what control the
centre will have over the collec-
tion, and whether the story of the
RCMP will continue to be told by
the police force itself.
Jodi Ann Eskritt, the curator of
the RCMP historical collections
unit, says the current exhibits do
mention the Indigenous people
who lived on the Prairies before
settlers arrived. The centre does
display gifts that Indigenous
communities have given RCMP
members over the years and has
recognized officers who were Mé-
tis, Inuit or came from First Na-
tions.
“We certainly try to, as much as
possible, open up opportunities
for seeing all sides,” Eskritt said,
adding: “[but] obviously, we are
first and foremost telling the sto-
ry of the RCMP.”CHANINTIMESThe story of Almighty Voice
changed over time in Canada,
from that of an outlaw to one of a
folk hero.
How the RCMP told his story –
from displaying the “war trophy”
to giving his remains back –changed, too. And that may point
the way to further reconciliation
between the police force and the
communities over which it has
held power.
Tricia Sutherland, chief of the
One Arrow First Nation, says her
community is looking forward to
having Almighty Voice’s remains
back. She said the descendants of
Almighty Voice are planning a
pipe ceremony and a feast when
the last of his body is returned.She said people on her reserve
used to not trust the local RCMP
detachment, but they’ve tried in
recent years to get to know them
and build relationships. Now, she
says things are much improved.
And a local reconciliation com-
mittee that brings together mu-
nicipal and Indigenous leaders
has been a strong force in bring-
ing different people together.
“I was reluctant about the rec-
onciliation buzzword, howeverI’ve changed my thinking on
this,” Sutherland said.
She said the same could apply
to the RCMP national museum,
when it’s set up.
“It just can’t be the history
we’ve known for the past century,
which [didn’t have] any input
from the First Nations at all,” she
said. “It was the history of the
government itself. We would like
our history to be told. It’s part of
the reconciliation, right?”RCMP:ChangingstoryofAlmightyVoicemaypointthewaytofurtherreconciliation
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