Indigenous Peoples at the CBSA - Robin Rattlesnake's Story

2019-08-27
Robin, band member of the Tootinaowaziibeeng reserve in Manitoba, works as a border services officer at Vancouver International Airport.

She hopes her story with the CBSA can inspire & encourage young Indigenous Peoples to join the Agency.

Transcript

Robin: Hello, my name is Robin Rattlesnake. I'm a registered Indian and a band member of the Tootinaowaziibeeng treaty reserve, in Manitoba.

I'm a border services officers with the Canada Border Services Agency and I work at the Vancouver International Airport.

Right now, I am regional representative for CBSA's Indigenous Advisory Circle. That's an advocacy group for Indigenous Peoples within CBSA. It's also an open group, so anyone can join that group.

I also am an Indigenous representative for recruiting and outreach in the Pacific Region, and I've had a lot of great support from my management team here, at VIA. What I do is I go to local communities, Indigenous communities and I attend their careers fairs or any outreach events they have that might be of value for CBSA to attend and speak with the youth and the community members.

Seeing the youth, I am so proud of them. The communities are really starting to heal and youth; you can see that they are proud of themselves and they're proud of their heritage, and they're out there representing their communities. That's really emotional for me and I'm very proud of them.

What I would tell them is don't give up and stay focused. If you don't have all the requirements to apply for the job than work on that and apply when you can. If you're not successful in one part of the process than try again when you can. Don't give up. It's a really good job and it's a long haul but you come out at the end with a career.

There are many things that I like about working for the CBSA but I have to say that my favorite thing is that our job is very exciting. Our tasks and challenges are very diverse here at the airport because we see a very large number of people and goods coming through.

Everyday is different! Everyone has a story and the challenges are different every day. You don't get bored at VIA.

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Are you Ready?
cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/indigenous-recruitment

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© Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada.
represented by the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness,

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