Funeral homes brace for wave of memorial services

Scott MacCoubrey looked at his growing list of postponed memorial services and realized he might have a problem.

He and his staff at MacCoubrey Funeral Homes in Cobourg and nearby Colborne have started generating ideas for how to address the backlog of memorial services created by government restrictions on public gatherings in an effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.

“We’re still sort of brainstorming, but one of the things that we’re planning on doing is having more night funerals,” said MacCoubrey, noting that would allow his funeral home to host an additional service every day. “Prior to the pandemic, we’d have maybe two night funerals a year.”

Small funerals are still permitted under Ontario’s current emergency orders, with an officiant plus nine other people allowed to attend. Expanding the number of people allowed to attend funerals was in Stage 1 of Premier Doug Ford’s plan to reopen the province that was unveiled on Monday, but the timeline and details of that plan are not yet clear.

Of course, death doesn’t wait for government orders.

According to Statistics Canada, Ontario averaged more than 8,300 deaths every April between 2014 and 2018, and a surge is expected this year because of the coronavirus.

Although some families have opted for the small-scale funerals currently permitted, most have not. A representative from the Ontario Funeral Services Association suggested there could be as many as 5,000 memorial services waiting to be held from the past six weeks alone.

“For the most part, families are understanding the situation and have followed the rules,” said Scott Smith, owner of Smith Funeral Home in Sarnia. “It is so hard to see families having to grieve separately and from a distance.”

Smith says he’s done what he can to help families, including hiring a videographer to ensure they have a quality recording of their private service or livestreaming the event when families have requested it.

Michael Sargent, of Sargent and Sons Funeral Home in Thunder Bay, hopes the government will lift the restrictions gradually so that smaller gatherings of 20 or 30 could be held, easing the burden on his industry.

“They may have families that are comfortable with 30 people there so (a limit of 50) is going to more than cover what we need, so they may be willing to proceed at that point,” Sargent said.

“I have others that are a big family with a lot of community involvement and they’re expecting 300 people, so they may not be quite comfortable yet with just a crowd of 50.”