Civic leaders in Dauphin, Man., are mulling ideas about how to officially memorialize the 15 members of their community killed last week in a devastating highway crash.
Dauphin mayor David Bosiak told 680 CJOB’s Connecting Winnipeg that it’s a matter of balancing the needs of everyone affected by the tragedy.
“Primarily our concern is focused on the family of survivors, and secondarily the rest of our community,” he said.
“We wanted to continue to be considerate as a council, we wanted to be compassionate towards those that have been directly and indirectly affected by this accident, and we also wanted to continue to be as respectful as we can with any of the plans that we’re trying to put in place on what we do next.”
Bosiak said one of the reasons there hasn’t been a large-scale public event in Dauphin is because a number of other community members — 10 in total — remain in hospital.
“We must be really considerate of those families and citizens who have loved ones who are still in critical care in the hospital,” he said. “So it’s this balance of what are we going do about those we know are deceased, but those who are still living and may be in a precarious state of health.
“Probably one of the more complicating factors is how do we continue with our regular day to day business as a municipality … and at the same time be compassionate and considerate about this tragedy that’s impacted us?”
Among that regular business: a high school graduation is coming up this weekend, and Dauphin’s marquee annual event, CountryFest, is scheduled to bring thousands of concertgoers to the area the weekend after.
An anticipated public announcement by RCMP confirming the names of those who were killed is likely to be the next “key variable” the community considers before moving ahead with any plans, as is the result of a Tuesday meeting of the local ministerial association.
So far, though, Bosiak said Dauphin’s residents have been taking comfort in the outpouring of support from well-wishers from all over the map.
“We have received messages from all over the world. It’s been a flurry of information sharing, and so that’s been very heartening, and I think that’s one of the things that’s making our situation somewhat unique … it might be part of the reason why there hasn’t been this public expression of a more community-sized gathering.
“It gives us some comfort that we know we’re not in this alone, and it’s tremendously difficult for many in our community right now.”
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