[2] To accommodate the increasing number of names on the roll, the memorial was redesigned in 2000, for which it won a Professional Award from the Canadian Society of Landscape Architects.

In 1998, the last Sunday in September was declared Police and Peace Officers' National Memorial Day, and starting in 2003 flags were lowered to half-mast in observance of that date.

[2] At the 1984 service, the Office of the Solicitor General and the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP) introduced a memorial book of remembrance.

This was extended to those killed in the line of duty and, in 1995, further expanded to include peace officers in all areas of law enforcement,[4][a] effective retroactively to 1879.

[8] The memorial is primarily a reconstruction of the Summer Pavilion, a gazebo built for the Speaker of the House of Commons in 1877 by Thomas Seaton Scott and demolished in 1956.

[2] The inscription space on the granite tablets began filling sooner than expected, due to the broadened scope for inclusion on the honour roll.

[4][9] Landscape architectural firm Phillips Farevaag Smallenberg – in collaboration with police and peace officers' associations, city officials and the community – designed a new memorial with the names of officers etched on stainless steel panels, set on glass on a low stone perimeter wall adjacent to the pavilion.

Kim O'Connell wrote in the journal of the American Society of Landscape Architects that the redesign showed strength while incorporating "dramatic views from Parliament Hill".

[4] On 22 March 1994, the memorial was inaugurated by Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, CPA and CACP, at a ceremony attended by more than 700 police officers and family members.

The official declaration noted that the day would "pay tribute to the hard work, dedication and sacrifices made by Canadian police and peace officers".