Winnipeg mayor presents key to the city to parents of Humboldt Broncos player

Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman presented a key to the city to the parents of Logan Boulet, a Humboldt Broncos player who died in the 2018 bus crash.

Bowman presented the key, which is the city’s highest honour, to Bernadine and Toby Boulet at a ceremony on Friday.

“We still think of it as our loss sometimes and the fact that we lost our son,” Bernadine said. “Things like this really tell us how far-reaching and how important our story and what we do is to so many people.”

Bowman added that countless families and friends still carry the burden of the April 6 tragedy.

Bernadine and Toby are being recognized for creating awareness about the importance of organ donation by sharing their son’s decision to become a donor.

“It is profoundly moving and compassionate for a person to let the end of their life be a catalyst for the continuation of other lives,” Bowman said in the Friday news conference.

Bowman described Bernadine and Toby as “incredible and selfless.”

“Next week will mark four years since the heartbreaking tragedy that touched the lives of so many Canadians coast to coast to coast,” he said.

“Sixteen people were taken from us too soon after a terrible highway crash that spared, but injured, another 13 people.”

Bowman added that countless families and friends still carry the burden of the tragedy.

“The day after the crash, on April 7, 2018, Humboldt Broncos defenceman Logan Boulet was one of those who was taken far too soon,” Bowman said through tears.

“His parents, Bernadine and Toby, offered to donate Logan’s organs so that six lives could move forward.”

The parents will be speaking about organ donation at Friday night’s Winnipeg Jets game.

Logan had signed up to be an organ donor five weeks before the crash. Six people across the country benefitted from the hockey player’s organs.

Nearly 147,000 Canadians registered to be donors in the two months after learning Logan was a donor.

“In what would become known as the ‘Logan Boulet Effect’ an estimated 150,000 Canadians became organ donors in the days and weeks that followed. It’s absolutely staggering that impact,” the mayor said.

Transplant Manitoba’s Dr. Faisal Siddiqui said donation registration climbed in Manitoba the month after the crash.

‘’There were over 10,000 people who registered that intent to donate just because of what discussions were happening,” Siddiqui said in an interview with CTV News.

Logan’s actions also led to the creation of Green Shirt Day every April 7, to support organ donor awareness and registration across Canada. 

-With files from The Canadian Press.