 In 1991, facing an aging congregation and declining weekly attendance, the parish's inner-city location was seen as an opportunity to serve Edmonton's growing urban Indigenous population.On October 27 of that year, the Archdiocese of Edmonton's Native Pastoral Centre was moved into Sacred Heart as Archbishop Joseph MacNeil declared the church to be a First Nations, Métis, and Inuit national parish, the first of its kind in Canada.In the early 1900s, an ongoing immigration rush to the Canadian West caused a rapid expansion of the Catholic Church in the region.