Two or three times a year, Jean-René Berthiaume gets a call about an “unclaimed” body.
A fourth-generation funeral director in Hawkesbury, Ont., Berthiaume routinely works with families on the final arrangements for their loved ones.
But these rare calls involve people whose bodies have not been spoken for by a friend or relative for reasons logistical, financial or personal.
Whatever the scenario — and no two cases are alike, he says — Berthiaume ensures they are laid to rest properly, making good on a lesson he learned from his grandmother.
“You have to respect everybody,” he said. “The dignity you bring toward someone who passes away will define who you are at the core.”
A label of last resort
Ontario recorded 1,183 “unclaimed” bodies last year, part of a considerable increase in recent years, especially once the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
There were 438 cases in 2019, then 691 in 2020, according to statistics shared by the province’s Office of the Chief Coroner — a total that has only increased each succeeding year.
The cases are assigned according to where the person died, and it’s ultimately the municipality’s responsibility to ensure the remains are taken care of.
In the Ottawa region, which stretches from Renfrew to Stormont County but records the vast majority of its cases in the national capital, the annual average was 86 over the last four years, reaching a high of 99 in the first year of the pandemic.
That’s compared to an annual average of 39 cases in the four years before COVID hit and left many medically vulnerable seniors dead.
The Toronto, Hamilton and London regions also saw their caseloads rise during the pandemic.
But as Louise McNaughton-Filion, an Ottawa-based regional supervising coroner for eastern Ontario, points out, a lot of effort goes into avoiding what she sees as a label of last resort.
“There are many, many more that are being searched for and we find next of kin,” she said.
And even when they can’t, “there are others that are willing to claim them.”
‘An extensive search’
The coroner’s office declares a body unclaimed if friends or family don’t claim the remains.
If the person died in a hospital or nursing home, that facility is responsible for the resulting search for next of kin (NOK). In all other cases the coroner’s office does that, with police acting as its agent.
A guideline document stresses that a dead person’s apartment should be inspected quickly because their belongings, which could help in finding family members, might be removed after 30 days.
One month is usually allotted for the NOK search, six weeks if you include making the disposition arrangements. But the process can sometimes take months, according to Berthiaume.
A former paramedic, Berthiaume converted part of a former ambulance bay at his funeral home property into a refrigerator with room for six to seven bodies. It’s used in part as a temporary resting place for the area’s unclaimed.
In Ottawa, the coroner’s office reviews “the morgue census” every seven days, McNaughton-Filion said.
During challenging NOK searches, police will scour social media and their own records for family clues.
“We really do not decide that somebody’s unclaimed from one day to the next. We make an extensive search,” McNaughton-Filion said.
In very rare cases where someone is both unclaimed and unidentified, the coroner’s office keeps trying to ID the person even after they’re interred, she added.
‘Vast possibility of scenarios’
But sometimes no family or friends come forward to claim a body. “We certainly respect that choice,” McNaughton-Filion said.
Next of kin are not required to claim and prior estrangement can be a factor.
Or it may be that the person died in a long-term care facility with no surviving siblings and no kids.
“It’s a vast possibility of scenarios,” Berthiaume said.
The most common reason someone is ultimately unclaimed — other than no next of kin being found — is because of families’ financial circumstances.
According to Sun Life Canada, the average price of a traditional funeral with a burial in Canada is between $5,000 and $25,000, while cremation can cost anywhere from about $2,000 to $5,000.
Social services agencies work with families to help them claim if the funds are unavailable, McNaughton-Filion said.
- Did you lose a loved one but were unable to claim their body? Willing to chat about it? Reach out at guy.quenneville@cbc.ca
Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa has a common ground, and a few historic ones, for unclaimed bodies.
“[The] need to access this type of service is … heartbreaking during their time of grief,” Nicolas McCarthy, a spokesperson for the cemetery, said via email. “It’s a choice that most families do not make lightly.”
In Hawkesbury, most unclaimed bodies Berthiaume has dealt with have been those of nursing home residents.
His funeral home can’t embalm or cremate the bodies without a family’s authorization, but it does wash and dress them, and have someone who knew the person confirm their identity — a neighbour, a friend or an employee, Berthiaume said.
Then he holds a service where people who knew the person can attend.
If a relative later asks how their loved one was handled, “We can show [them] exactly what we did … and how [they were] treated with respect like anybody else,” Berthiaume said.
Graves are usually unmarked, but cemeteries still keep tabs on where people are buried so families can visit or even have the bodies exhumed and moved elsewhere if they wish.
Berthiaume uses a Catholic cemetery on the eastern edge of Hawkesbury, on a hill overlooking the Ottawa River.
On a partly cloudy day last spring he gave a tour, pointing out patches of faded grass reserved for unclaimed bodies.
They were nestled amid more traditional burial plots marked with headstones.
“That’s what a cemetery should be,” said Marc Bisson, managing director of Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Ottawa-Cornwall, which owns the site.
“We wouldn’t want to segregate a class of society from the rest.”
‘Our brother’s keeper’
For McNaughton-Filion, it’s “heartening” when the remains are claimed.
Churches, mosques, synagogues, Indigenous groups and The Last Post Fund, which focuses on retired military members, have all agreed to claim bodies or help with their burial when others could not.
The Ottawa Mission, which runs the Diane Morrison Hospice for men and women in partnership Ottawa Inner City Health, helps people whose struggles with homelessness, addictions and terminal illnesses might have estranged them from loved ones, or who have been failed by the health system and society, said manager Hephzibah Orelaja.
Since around 2018, the hospice has asked its clients to consider planning their own cremations or burials, like one couple who recently wanted to be buried side by side.
All have their names on a monument at Beechwood Cemetery to mark the area where they’re buried, in addition to a place on a memorial wall at the mission.
Orelaja said she’s seen first-hand the joy and relief families feel when they learn how their relative’s remains were looked after.
“They’re really grateful that their loved ones didn’t just die on the street, and actually had a community that cared,” she said.
“And I think it’s important, irrespective of when you’re housed or unhoused, for us to be our brother’s keeper.”