Danielle Finney is a writer and communications professional in Vancouver.
| Like the rest of the country, I was deeply saddened by news of the Humboldt Broncos tragedy last year, in which 16 people were killed. My heart went out to the families who lost loved ones when your semi-truck crashed into the hockey team’s bus.
| I can’t pretend to know precisely what you’re going through, Mr. Sidhu. But I was once on the other side of what happened – and because of that, I truly hope you are able to move forward, all the same.
| On an October afternoon in 2003, my mother Paige – 60 years old at the time – was among a line of drivers waiting on a stretch of Saskatchewan highway as a school bus stopped for a drop off. It was sunny and clear out; the highway was flat and straight.
| So the man driving the semi-trailer should have seen the bright yellow school bus, or the five or so cars that were stopped on the road dutifully obeying the highway rules. But he didn’t. He wasn’t drunk; he wasn’t texting; there were no visual obstructions. His truck slammed into the lineup of vehicles at almost 100 km/hour. My mom was killed at the scene. Another person died later that evening. Several more were injured.
|  | | | | Did you know? - We also have an Evening Update newsletter that is written by Globe editors to help you catch up on the most important news of the day. Sign up today. | | | | | | More stories below advertisement | | | Little things sometimes reveal the big picture. Consider this nugget from Integrity Commissioner J. David Wake’s report into the Ford government’s attempted hiring of Toronto Police Superintendent Ron Taverner as commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police.
| On the morning of Aug. 17, 2018, then-secretary to the cabinet Steve Orsini – the province’s senior public servant – sent an e-mail to the deputy minister of finance. The subject line: “Urgent: Ron Taverner.”
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