Bronco donations should be divided equally
I can’t speak for all of the 142,000 donors to the Humboldt Broncos’ Gofundme page, set up in the hours after the April 6 crash that killed 16 people aboard the team bus and injured 13 others.
I can, however, speak for myself and my husband.
Like all Canadians, we were devastated by the tragedy and wanted to do something to help. We donated some money back when the fund was at about $6 million, if memory serves me correctly.
By the time the crowdsourcing page was shut down just 12 days after the crash, more than $15 million — or $15,172,300 to be exact — was raised. My intent upon donating that cash, beyond showing that we cared, was for the money to be split evenly among the 13 survivors and the 16 families of those who died in the crash.
My guess is most donors to the fund felt the same way.
That, however, is not what is happening.
Because the crash happened in Saskatchewan, the Humboldt Broncos Memorial Fund Inc., is before the courts. Saskatchewan is the only province in Canada that has laws that govern such public appeals for money.
The law is not necessarily a bad idea but, other than oversight to ensure no scams are taking place, the court should just back off and dole out the cash as the donors intended.
On Wednesday, Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s
Bench Justice Neil Gabrielson approved interim $50,000 Gofundme payments to those affected by the bus crash.
Jeff Lee, a lawyer who represents the memorial fund, told the court that some of the families are struggling financially from funeral costs, medical costs and job loss.
Under the Informal Public Appeals Act, a court hearing can be requested by a trustee, a person who benefits from a fund, a donor, the attorney general or anyone else the court deems has a sufficient interest in a fund. In the Broncos case, a hearing was requested by the Humboldt Broncos Memorial Fund.
Peter Lown, chair of the committee on program development and management with the Uniform Law Conference, said the law was initially recommended because of an increasing number of public fundraisers.
“Everybody says ... ‘I should help out with that,’ ” he told The Canadian Press. “So what does that mean? How are they going to be helped? Is there a differential for survivors and non-survivors or families? What can it be used for? How much of it can be used?”
I know his questions are rhetorical but the answers seem pretty obvious. Should there be a differential for survivors and non-survivors? In my view, no. How much of it can be used? All of it.
How does someone, or a committee, determine what loss is worth more? Should those who survived the crash and have ongoing medical expenses receive more of the funds? Certainly, a case can be made for that but, as a parent, I would rather have an injured child than a dead one.
Tom Straschnitzki, whose son Ryan, 19, was paralyzed from the chest down, doesn’t think his family should get more because of Ryan’s foreseeable lifelong medical issues.
“I just say divide it, but that’s just me,” Straschnitzki has previously said from the family’s Airdrie home.
Two lawyers representing the families of two of the young players killed in the crash between the team bus and a semi-trailer hauling peat moss — Tim Hodgson and Kevin Mellor — also want the money evenly distributed because one person could hypothetically produce receipts for expenses incurred while another may not be able to do so.
According to court documents, Gofundme subtracted $482,712 in processing fees from the money raised, which seems like a lot, but that’s a different topic. The online platform is also setting up a temporary reserve for potential charge backs of $48,500.
What remains is $14,641,989. That means, if that money is divided evenly, all 29 families affected by this devastating crash would each receive about $505,000.
Instead, the courts have approved a committee to determine how the funds are to be distributed.
The committee is made up of top-notch people, including retired Saskatchewan justice Dennis Ball; Mark Chipman, chairman of the company that owns the NHL’S Winnipeg Jets; Olympic women’s hockey gold-medallist Hayley Wickenheiser; Dr. Peter Spafford, who’s in charge of head and neck surgery at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Medicine; and Kevin Cameron, executive director of the Canadian Centre for Threat Assessment and Trauma Response.
As a donor to the fund, I donated to help every family directly affected by the crash equally. It seems so odd to complicate matters. Here’s hoping this committee keeps things simple and follows the intent of the fund, many of the families involved and those who gave.