What is the value of your tragedy?

What is the value of your tragedy?

I was stunned when I saw the news. A van had mowed down a number of pedestrians on a sidewalk in Toronto.  10 people have died, 15 people were injured, a number of the injured were taken to Sunnybrook Trauma Centre. Names have not yet been released but the driver of the van has been apprehended and was going to court this morning. Apparently he asked police to shoot him.  

It seems obvious that this 25 year old man was intent on harming others and himself, hoping that he would die in the process. It seems obvious that there are a lot of issues going on, probably mental health issues. We may never know.

What do we do now? The damage is done. There is no turning back time. There is no solution to action that will make it all better.  I read this morning that a GoFund Me account has been set up for the  victims. I checked into it and there is a campaign with a goal of 1 million dollars. So far $26,000 has been donated.   The page states that funds are being raised for funeral expenses of the victims who lost their lives.  It was set up by Canada Zakat, a project that raised and distributed over $800,000 to the victims of last year’s mosque shooting in Quebec.

I checked out the GoFundMe page for the Humboldt Broncos.  The goal was $4 million and in 17 days the campaign raised over $15million.  The purpose of this fund was to help raise money for the players and families affected.  It went viral. It went global.  Now there are lawyers and financial advisors involved. 

In comparison, the GoFundMe campaign started for the community of Fort McMurray after fires devastated that community raised just over $1 million.  

I remember watching Don Cherry speak about the tragedy during one of the Saturday night playoff games.   He said that the fund was at 8 or 9 million at that time.  I couldn’t help thinking how ridiculous that was. What a ridiculous amount of money. It was too soon to express my opinion about how I felt. There would be too much backlash.   I would never speak poorly of such a tragedy and the pain that the survivors and the victims’ families are suffering through, but 8 million? 

How many tragedies happen daily across the globe? How many bus accidents?  How many underprivileged children suffer? How many women die at the hands of those who feel that women are property? How many people are tragically murdered, maimed or tortured because of their race, religion or geography? And how much money do we raise for those survivors and those victims’ families?

Thinking about the needs of the Humboldt victims I feel conflicted. It seems to me that a bus carrying a hockey team of young men is most likely a bus carrying a team of privileged white males whose families are not struggling and could afford to pay for hockey for 15 years.   Do these families need so much? Sure, there may be a player or two who have been helped by social programs along the way. And yes, there was the bus driver and the one woman who was the trainer. Yes, yes and yes. Still I can’t help but wonder about the many others in the world that are suffering and needy and what $15million could do. 

The victims of the attack in Toronto yesterday will probably not incite such massive donations.  Those victims were unrelated, unknown to each other. Their group might be called the” Victims of the Van Attack” or the “Pedestrians of Toronto” or “People Who Walk to Work” or “Loving the Weather at Yonge and Finch”.  Their team will never inspire the kind of generosity that came out of a tragic downfall of a “hockey team”.  It is this disparity and inequality that makes me wonder why similar tragedies have different values or are measured with a different value system.  

The GoFundMe campaign is now at $89,000 24 hours after the tragedy.