Some Canadian provinces have logged a jump in unclaimed dead bodies in recent years, with next of kin citing funeral costs as a growing reason for not collecting loved ones’ remains.
The phenomenon has prompted at least one province to build a new storage facility. Demand for memorial fundraisers has surged. The overall cost of a funeral in Canada at the top end has increased to about $8,800 from about $6,000 in 1998, according to industry trade group estimates.
Now, in the wake of an uproar over unclaimed bodies kept in freezers outside the (Health Sciences Centre in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador), the province is constructing a permanent storage unit to hold remains.
“People weren’t claiming bodies because they realized they couldn’t afford to bury them,” said Jim Dinn, leader of the province’s opposition New Democratic Party. “It’s not about building a bigger storage unit: It’s about addressing the underlying cause causing the accumulation of bodies and removing the barriers so people can have a dignified burial.”
Wandering around the Internet a bit, it looks like the cheapest option for disposing of a body in Canada today is basic cremation (no funeral service, no urn, no coffin, no enbalming). Even that runs to around $2000, with some variation between funeral homes. If the CPP death benefit is $2500 before taxes, it might barely cover that, although I expect it would be tight. The major costs are the actual use of the crematorium (~40% of the cost on its own), paying funeral home staff to transport and refrigerate the body, and costs associated with legal documentation.
If you want to bury instead of burn, the cost baloons because cemetary plots and the services cemetaries require you to buy to make use of them are ridiculously expensive. Maybe what we need is a return to the pauper’s field—$20 plots, no landscaping, and you dig your own hole (with maybe a quick check from someone official to make sure it’s deep enough for sanitary purposes), transport the corpse in whatever vehicle is available, have anyone willing say a few words, get family or friends to help you lower the unfinished softwood crate-coffin, and add whatever marker you can afford after you fill the hole back in. You know, like poor people used to do up until a hundred or so years ago. You’ll still need the body refrigeration, and the documentation, but it should be possible to get the costs down by considerable if we focus more on the necessary and less on the pretty and on overpriced “respect” for a deceased who, by definition, cannot be aware of it.
For now, though, set aside some money specifically to pay for disposing of your body, if you can. You heirs will thank you for it.
The main point of charging anything at all for a plot would be to finance minimal record keeping: which plots are supposed to be full, who’s in them, and, ideally, who bought the space. Plus a quick “do you have a death certificate?” check, and a request to inform whoever’s doing the admin if you get to the pauper’s field and find the plot you expected to use already occupied. Not an insurmountable barrier for a determined murderer who’s done some advance planning, but it should make it less attractive as a dumping ground.
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Wandering around the Internet a bit, it looks like the cheapest option for disposing of a body in Canada today is basic cremation (no funeral service, no urn, no coffin, no enbalming). Even that runs to around $2000, with some variation between funeral homes. If the CPP death benefit is $2500 before taxes, it might barely cover that, although I expect it would be tight. The major costs are the actual use of the crematorium (~40% of the cost on its own), paying funeral home staff to transport and refrigerate the body, and costs associated with legal documentation.
If you want to bury instead of burn, the cost baloons because cemetary plots and the services cemetaries require you to buy to make use of them are ridiculously expensive. Maybe what we need is a return to the pauper’s field—$20 plots, no landscaping, and you dig your own hole (with maybe a quick check from someone official to make sure it’s deep enough for sanitary purposes), transport the corpse in whatever vehicle is available, have anyone willing say a few words, get family or friends to help you lower the unfinished softwood crate-coffin, and add whatever marker you can afford after you fill the hole back in. You know, like poor people used to do up until a hundred or so years ago. You’ll still need the body refrigeration, and the documentation, but it should be possible to get the costs down by considerable if we focus more on the necessary and less on the pretty and on overpriced “respect” for a deceased who, by definition, cannot be aware of it.
For now, though, set aside some money specifically to pay for disposing of your body, if you can. You heirs will thank you for it.
I hear what you are saying, my thought would be murders taking advantage of a DYI burial site.
The main point of charging anything at all for a plot would be to finance minimal record keeping: which plots are supposed to be full, who’s in them, and, ideally, who bought the space. Plus a quick “do you have a death certificate?” check, and a request to inform whoever’s doing the admin if you get to the pauper’s field and find the plot you expected to use already occupied. Not an insurmountable barrier for a determined murderer who’s done some advance planning, but it should make it less attractive as a dumping ground.