Remarks by
The Honourable Anita Neville, P.C., O.M.
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba
RCMP LONG SERVICE AND GOOD CONDUCT MEDAL CEREMONY
Lower Fort Garry National Historic Site
Wednesday, May 14, 2025, 1:00 p.m.
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Friends and fellow Manitobans, welcome to a special place steeped in Canadian history and a special day to celebrate service to Canada.
As we begin this ceremony, we acknowledge that we are gathered in Treaty One land and in the homeland of the Red River Metis.
We acknowledge as well that from the Red River to Hudson Bay, this province is the ancestral and present-day home of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Dakota, Dene, Inuit and Red River Metis peoples.
As Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, I am honoured to serve in a province committed to truth, reconciliation and collaboration.
This year, perhaps more than in any year since Canada’s Centennial, Canadians have been flying our national flag and thinking about what unites us and what it means to be Canadian.
This ceremony, celebrating careers spent in service of public safety and a great national institution, is an opportunity to reflect on that. It is especially fitting that we are gathered here at Lower Fort Garry, on the site of the signing of the first of the numbered treaties, for this ceremony.
Here is where so much of the history of western Canada began. And here is where the relationship and the obligations to work in partnership to build a nation on truth and reconciliation was put down on paper more than 150 years ago.
For more than a century and a half, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police has been part of the building of an independent, prosperous land living under the rule of law.
Members have provided federal policing and security services as well as local policing across vast areas of Canada.
Today we celebrate individual members who have upheld the RCMP’s high standards of conduct, while serving with diligence, integrity and courage.
Theirs is a job that requires service at all hours, under all weather conditions, and with an awareness that any moment could turn into a matter of life or death.
The individuals being recognized today have served in a wide range of capacities, often doing many different kinds of policing at different stages of their careers.
They’ve been front-line responders, they have trained and supervised others, they have provided specialized investigative and technological services, they have worked to ensure that the future safety and security needs of our country are met.
And today we pause for a moment to thank these members for their long and honourable service to the country we love and to its people.
To all of today’s honourees, I offer thanks for serving your community and country and giving us more reasons to wave the maple leaf with pride.
Thank you. Merci. Meegwich. Shalom
