When Dauphin Mayor David Bosiak first learned of a serious collision on the Trans-Canada Highway the morning of June 15, 2023, he couldn’t have imagined the trauma and turmoil to come.
Bosiak quickly became the go-to spokesperson for the city, left reeling by a deadly crash near Carberry, about two hours south, that claimed the lives of 17 seniors from Dauphin.
“We didn’t know what we needed to do to help our community through this situation,” Bosiak told attendees at the 33rd Manitoba Disaster Management Conference Wednesday morning in Winnipeg. “I was learning on the fly.”
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS
Dauphin mayor David Bosiak speaks at the Manitoba Disaster Management Conference in Winnipeg on Wednesday.
The mayor joined business and political delegates from across the province to discuss emergency preparedness in disasters, crises and mass-casualty events.
Bosiak used his speech to shed light on the first days in Dauphin following the horrific crash and some key takeaways about crisis management.
After multiple reports began revealing details about fiery collision involving a semi-trailer and a minibus filled with Dauphin seniors travelling to the Sand Hills Casino for the day, Bosiak and city manager Sharla Griffiths got to work organizing a a resource centre for families and co-ordinating with RCMP to handle the onslaught of media requests.
“What I learned that day from the RCMP was, if you don’t know, don’t say,” Bosiak said.
“By staying in our lane, we avoided controversy, we avoided messy situations that we had to clean up, we avoided misinformation that we had to correct.”
Bosiak fielded calls from then-premier Heather Stefanson, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former Humboldt, Sask. mayor Rob Muench, who offered advice based on lessons learned from the 2018 crash that killed 15 members of the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team.
“When the disaster struck that community, there was a community response. When the disaster struck our community, we had an individualized community response,” Bosiak said.
Just eight people paid a visit to the resource centre set up for the community to access crisis workers and therapy dogs on its first day of operation.
Bosiak later learned the Dauphin & District Ministerial Association was inundated with phone calls asking for support from priests and pastors.
“We found that our community mourns in private,” he said.
The mayor also had to navigate a flood of monetary donations that had no destination.
Manitoba insurer Wawanesa Insurance cut a cheque for $50,000 to the City of Dauphin, but nothing formal had been set up to manage donations. The total quickly climbed to more than $100,000.
Relatives of victims tried to claim some of the cash for themselves, citing funeral expenses and costs incurred cleaning out deceased family members’ homes.
“It was awkward, because we didn’t expect to manage that. The information we got from Humboldt was that there’s all kinds of charlatans out there trying to set up funds and take advantage of this tragedy,” Bosiak said.
“They were saying, ‘have a handle on these funds.’”
The city created a fund through the Winnipeg Foundation, which is now handling the cash. Some of it was used to pay for a memorial dedicated to the 17 victims in Dauphin’s CN Park. The remaining money sits in a trust that will be drawn from annually to fund seniors’ programs in the community.
Donation management aside, the tragedy continues to affect Dauphin residents more than a year later, Bosiak said.
“The grief lingers. We’ll never forget, but we have to move forward,” he said.
nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca
Nicole Buffie
Multimedia producer
Nicole Buffie is a multimedia producer who reports for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College’s Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom in 2023. Read more about Nicole.
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