Charlotte L'oste-Brown received a lung transplant after years of sickness, and she's supporting Green Shirt Day as a way to encourage people to sign up to be donors. April 3, 2019 (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)

By Lisa Schick

Green Shirt Day set to honour the legacy of Logan Boulet

Apr 3, 2019 | 2:18 PM

The legislative building was filled Wednesday morning with people trying to make some good come out of a terrible tragedy.

The Saskatchewan gallery was filled with people for the proclamation of April 7 as Green Shirt Day. It’s meant to honour the legacy of former Humboldt Broncos defenceman Logan Boulet and to raise awareness of organ donation and encourage people to sign up as donors.

Charlotte L’oste-Brown was in the crowd, with her green shirt on. She spent 15 years in sickness and 19 months on the list before receiving a lung transplant.

She said the waiting is so awful that “you almost think it’s not going to come.”

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L’oste-Brown said she can’t believe the strength and courage the Boulet family has shown since the Broncos bus crash April 6 of last year, and she said she couldn’t put into words how she felt about the “Logan Boulet Effect.”

“The effect that he has had is marvelous under the tragic circumstances, that’s all I can say,” she said.

L’oste-Brown is hoping the day helps increase donations to the point that, eventually, people who need an organ will only have to wait two or three weeks.

Chris Willemburg was supporting the day as well. He’s an organ donor, having given a kidney to his then-fiancee.

Speaking to the crowd, Willemburg praised Boulet and his choice.

“We commemorate the courage of one young man and how he turned immense tragedy into triumph, and when the world needed it most,” Willemburg said. “More than that, he saved the lives of six people whom he never met, but simply signed up to help.”

Willemburg encouraged people to “be like Logan and choose to be somebody’s hero” and sign up to donate.

Boulet was a 21-year old who died from injuries he sustained in the Broncos bus crash. But because he had signed up to be an organ donor just weeks earlier, he was able to help six people.

That inspired what has come to be called the “Logan Boulet Effect.” In the weeks after the crash, it’s believed about 100,000 people signed up as organ donors across Canada.

People are being encouraged to wear green shirts on Sunday, and again on Monday at work and at school to support the new day.

Province working on organ donation

Health Minister Jim Reiter said the rates of organ donation are too low in Saskatchewan, and he praised the acts of Boulet and his family.

In the spring budget, the province set aside money to create an organ donor registry, but Reiter said that doesn’t mean the province has given up on presumed consent.

Reiter explained that working on doctor numbers in Saskatchewan and creating the registry are things the province was advised to do first.

Nova Scotia recently unveiled proposed legislation to move to a presumed-consent model for organ donation, meaning a person 19 and over would be an organ donor unless they opted out.

Reiter said his office is excited about that development and will be following it closely. He said he already has a call in to his counterpart in Nova Scotia to talk about it.

— With files from the Canadian Press