Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
With the number of cremations rising across Canada, there is increasing demand for areas appropriate for scattering the ashes of loved ones, particularly for groups for whom the placement of ashes is a sacred ritual.
For many Hindus and Sikhs in the Toronto area, fulfilling the obligation to scatter remains in flowing water has often meant either searching for a spot on the shore of Lake Ontario or taking an expensive trip to a sacred site in India.
But a new park near the Ontario Khalsa Darbar Sikh temple in Mississauga promises a dedicated location for mourners to dispose of ashes in accordance with religious practices.
“For a very long time, we didn't have culturally sensitive services for doing this thing, and so for most folks that were Sikh we were looking at big financial barriers and emotional barriers,” Jaspreet Bal, a professor at Humber College and member of the Ontario Khalsa Darbar, told CTV’s Your Morning on Monday.
While the site – named Kiratpur Park after a sacred site in India – is not yet finished, it’s already hosted more than 200 ceremonies in the past eight months. It will include a fountain, a gazebo, recycling bins for cardboard boxes used to transport remains, and appropriate areas for mourners to grieve. But key to the site is direct access to the running water of Etobicoke Creek, which runs along the property.
“For Sikhs, specifically, there's four major rites of passage that are mandated by our code of conduct,” said Bal. “This specific one around when people pass away, we make sure that we're not attached to the body. To that end we cremate and then we return it to the Earth and the best way to do that is to put it into a flowing body of water.”
While disposing of ashes is legal on Crown land, it is generally not permitted on municipal lands in Ontario, and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority has only recently begun changing its rules to allow disposal in water.
At the same time, cremation rates have been rising in Canada. More than 70 per cent of deaths in Canada were followed by cremation last year, according to the Cremation Association of North America.
“To have these sites means that people can actually complete those final responsibilities with final rites of passage without having to think like getting on a flight and going back to India,” said Bal. “Especially for a lot of folks that were born here in Canada and spent their entire life here, it was a really interesting idea that they would have to go back or have their ashes taken back to a country they’d never been to to immerse them in the water there.”
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Brad Marchand scored twice, including the winner in the third period, and added an assist as the Boston Bruins downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series Wednesday
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was among the 1,700 delegates attending the two-day First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference that concluded Tuesday in Toronto.
The daughter of a New Brunswick man recently exonerated from murder, is remembering her father as somebody who, despite a wrongful conviction, never became bitter or angry.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.