Quebec needs fund for pauper burials: funeral directors

Unclaimed bodies in Quebec are not getting buried properly because there's not enough money to cover costs, says the province's association of funeral directors.

The provincial government currently pays Quebec funeral homes $350 to take care of an unclaimed body, a sum that barely starts to cover the expense of cremation or other services, the association told CBC News.

With as many as 300 bodies going unclaimed a year in Quebec, it means many are not getting a proper burial because provincial funding for the service is so low, according to association president Marc Poirier. "For the amount of money they give, there's nothing, let's say sweet, that is done, or can be done," he said.

A funeral home needs at least $2,500 to provide appropriate services, and the Quebec government should pay up, Poirier said. The same amount is provided to bereaved families living on social assistance, he said. Most funeral homes don't take on pauper burials because of the current system, he explained.

But the province inherits estates from unclaimed bodies, and there could be a way to use those assets to start a burial fund, Poirier suggested.

Many ofthe unclaimed bodies are elderly people who die alone. If no family or next of kin can be located within 30 days, their remains become the responsibility of the province.

Their bodies are taken from the morgue and put in a plain wooden or steel casket, to be buried in groups. The burial itself involves no final words or ceremony. Unclaimed bodies are not cremated.

It doesn't have to be like that, said Claude Comte, director of Montreal's Ville-Marie funeral homes, which doeshandle pauper burials.

With a provincial fund for burials, he said,"it would be better in a way because we would be able to provide them decent funerals," including an appropriate ceremony and other rituals.

In Montreal, unclaimed bodies are buried at the Cimetire de Laval, with small numbered markers.