'Followed everything to a T': Former N.L. cabinet minister defends funeral home operations

Former provincial cabinet minister PaulOramstaunchly defendsthe operations of his funeral home inGlovertown, amid questions raised by aCBCNews undercover investigation.

"We do not sellprepaids[funerals]. We haven't soldprepaids. We do not put money in a trust account," said the former health minister.

"There's nothing here that we're hiding or not doing right or anything like that. We have followed everything to a T."

His business,Oram's Funeral Home, is one of five funeral homes that had its licence for prepaid funerals suspended by the province two years ago, after failing to provide financial audits for multiple years.

• 2 N.L. funeral homes with suspended licences still offer prepaid services to new clients

WhenCBCNews called the company undercover, an employee saidOram's does accept money in advance for funeral arrangements.

The employee explained that an individual interested in those services would speak with the funeral director, and confirmed that the money would be put into a trust.

Later, PaulOramsaid that employee his 70-year-old mother somehow got it mixed up.

"If she said that, she knows the difference because the insurance agent is her best friend," Oramsaid.

"She just mixed it up because that's just not the way it works. I mean, we haven't been doing that for years.

"Anybody can even look at our accounting and our books and see that we don't do any, any, any pre-arranged funerals in a trust account."

'Very limited or non-existent' records

According to documents obtained through access to information, the province started investigating the company that would later be known as OGIHoldings in 2011. OGI operatesOram'sFuneral Home, which had previously acquired Squire's Funeral Home that same year.

Four years later, Service NL had discussions with the company's accountant.

"They advised that they have difficulty with the availability of records for the earlier years, however, they have been advised for some time of the requirements to provide audited financial statements," the documents read.

Efforts to work with [the owner] to bring his companies into compliance have been challenging.- Provincial government documents from 2016

"The accountant indicated that records prior to 2007 were very limited or non-existent."

An information note provided to the minister in April 2016 said "efforts to work with [the owner] to bring his companies into compliance have been challenging."

The briefing materials advise that there have been "no complaints to date that service has not been provided."

Inherited handwritten receipts

Oramsays the non-compliance issues with financial paperwork date back to when he purchased some funeral homes from men who ran "very traditional" businesses.

"They would have written... on a sheet of paper, essentially a piece of loose leaf, believe it or not and I don't say that to be negative about these people, because they are very honest people, they didn't do anything wrong. It's just the way it was done back then. We're talking, in some cases, 35 to 40 years ago," he said.

"They would have like, 'Aunt So-and-so, wood' which I would make an assumption would be a wood casket and the total amount of money that they'd put into the trust account, which would be say $3,200 or $2,000 or $5,000, whatever it might be."

So he says when the prepaid funeral legislation came into effect,Oram'sasked its accountants to verify those numbers.

"They said: 'We can't verify what these numbers were. We can't verify that the previous owner actually took the money and put it in a prepaid fund. We assume they did, and we've never heard any complaints from any customers, but we just can't do it,'"Oramsaid.

He says that battle with Service NL went on "for years and years," costing his company upwards of $20,000 to $30,000.

"I could never ever get it to their satisfaction," he said. "So essentially what happened is, we just gave up on it."

Oramsays the funeral home stopped selling prepaid services, and contacted an insurance company in March 2016 to instead offer that option to their clients.

Oram'sFuneral Home still honours agreements with prepaid funeral clients made prior to the suspension, and that money is held in a trust account.

'Much better off'

Oramsayshis business is "much better off" since deciding to not offer prepaid funeral services outright, but instead through an insurance agent.

"It costs me nothing, I don't have to do audited statements, because there's nothing to audit, because the money doesn't go into my account," he said.

"It's just the perfect set-up. [Service NL] don't like it because they can't collect the fee."