Downed officer dreamt of being Mountie

Troubled teen was intent on turning life around SASKATOON — An RCMP officer fighting for her life in a Saskatoon hospital overcame years of trouble to achieve her dream of becoming a police officer. Const. Robin Cameron, 29, was one of two officers from the Spiritwood detachment who were shot Friday evening as they investigated an assault complaint in northern Saskatchewan. Both Cameron and her partner, Const. Marc Bourdages, were listed in serious condition Monday. 

Cameron grew up on the Beardy’s and Okemasis First Nation near Duck Lake, north of Saskatoon, but moved to the city after an accident left one of her brothers paraplegic. She spoke about her early years in an interview posted on the website of Keewatin Career Development Corporation, a non-profit umbrella organization of educational and career agencies in northern Saskatchewan. After attending pubic school from Grades 1 to 3, she was sent to St. Michael Indian residential school for Grades 4 to 8. "I didn’t like it," 

Cameron said. "I believe I was sent there because I was having problems at home, and I was getting out of hand. "In high school I bounced back and forth between the public school and the residential school. Eventually I had to drop out altogether because of a teen pregnancy." Determined to turn her life around, Cameron eventually returned to school and completed two years of university. But she wasn’t satisfied. "I always wanted to be an RCMP, ever since I was a little girl," she said. "When I went for the interview, they told me that my eyes were too bad, and they refused me. I was stubborn. Nobody tells me no. "I ended up getting laser surgery on my eyes. When I went back, they took me in." 

A keen athlete, Cameron has competed in the Indigenous Games and toured Canada and the United States with her soccer team. She comes from an athletic family, with siblings who compete in track and field as well as soccer. Cameron’s daughter is now 11.

*By The Canadian Press