Homeless in Vancouver: Trashing CBSA shirts borders on careless

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      The Canada Border Services Agency probably, almost certainly, absolutely definitely, must have guidelines for the proper disposal of guard uniforms.

      I’m guessing that a public dumpster behind an apartment building in the Fairview neighbourhood isn’t a proper place to throw away government agency uniforms, but that’s where I found a whole big box full of navy blue CBSA uniform shirts.

      Who’s guarding against the possibility of impersonation?

      Nice shirts—button-down collars, heavy-weight fabric—each with two large gusseted pockets. I think all of them had been worn, but they were all in great condition, so far as I could tell—and clean.

      These shirts would have been perfect for my idea of setting up border controls on Ontario Street between Mount Pleasant and Fairview, but I resisted the urge to keep any. I suspect there are all sorts of legal issues involved in both declaring sovereignty and wearing uniforms shirts branded with CBSA patches.

      Perhaps the shirts’ acronym patch design has been replaced by a spelled-out “Border Services” patch, but I still think the shirts look too official to be disposed of in such a cavalier fashion.

      I don’t know if any other binners or Dumpster divers helped themselves to a shirt. It’s been over two weeks since I took the photos and the shirts are long gone.

      If you do see what looks like a Canadian Border Services guard binning for returnable bottles in your back alley, be advised that it’s not what it looks like. The real CBSA guards actually make pretty good money.

      Stanley Q. Woodvine

      Stanley Q. Woodvine is a homeless resident of Vancouver who has worked in the past as an illustrator, graphic designer, and writer.

      Comments

      2 Comments

      Frank

      Jul 29, 2014 at 9:04am

      Maybe they were used on the TV show 'Border Security'
      and got dumped after filming. They would be a great ebay item. Lotsa people like collecting this kind of stuff

      Mike

      Jul 29, 2014 at 11:53am

      Maybe a former guard was fired and just got mad and threw the uniforms in the garbage instead of returning them...