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“You know, that night was, it was,” Premier Scott Moe paused, finding his words. “It was a night that I, like so many other people in this province, hope to never see again.”
Most people in Saskatchewan will be able to remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard about the Humboldt Broncos bus crash. The premier said he was just sitting down to supper with his wife in a Shellbrook restaurant.
“We had just ordered our supper and we sat there in disbelief as we looked at one another across the table and started to process, like so many others, what was actually happening.”
Moe said they were getting texts and hearing from officials, media and friends in the hockey community about what happened.
He said they soon started to work through the severity of what happened, trying to figure out what it meant for the families involved and the province.
Moe said he knew people would want to show their support, and he wanted to figure out how to do that. His government sent out a letter expressing their condolences, but things didn’t go quite how Moe had expected.
“Those closest to the accident — the families and the community — showed such strength,” he said. “In many ways, I think the way that everyone related, it inspired everyone to actually draw strength from those that were closest to this incident.”
The premier went to Humboldt and the crash site shortly after the incident, and he said what he felt there was pure sorrow.
“There is nothing that can explain the loss that we see those families are going through,” he explained.
The crash happened in the early days of Moe’s time as Premier — just over two months after he was sworn in. He says he was just trying to put his best foot forward and show people there was a way through.
“There’s no handbook for what you do in these instance; it doesn’t matter if you’re a new premier or if you’ve been around a decade. There’s no guidelines on how you be a premier in an event so tragic as this. You’re all just people, you’re all just people in this … you’re just a person relating to this like anyone else would,” Moe said.
Watching the tragedy and the aftermath, Moe noted he learned not to take the people around you for granted.
“I have two children — I love them, I’ve always loved them. I hold them tighter now, I truly do. I hold them a lot closer today than I ever did,” he said.
Moe also brought lessons into his work. He said he takes the experiences with him every day in the decisions he makes. Since the crash, Moe explained his government has been making changes, things like increasing truck driver training requirements, investing in highway and intersection safety, and keeping a focus on increasing organ donor numbers in the province.
“We’re very deliberately making those changes slowly and we’re having the discussions that we think we need to have to ensure that they are changes that are the right changes — that actually make a difference, and they’re changes that will be around for a while,” he explained.
Moe said the past year has been surreal in some ways. He says Saskatchewan is a province, but it’s also a community, and that community has come together.
“A year later, the support of everyone in this province to the families and friends, is as strong as it ever has been,” he said.
Moe will be at the memorial on Saturday. He said it’ll be tough personally, but he’s also there as a political leader.
“I think it’s important for someone in my position and someone in so many other positions to be there to show that we support those families, and we’re thinking of them each and every day.”
