N.S. regulatory board says funeral directors should be required to confirm body ID before cremation

The board that regulates funeral directors in Nova Scotia says a law needs to change so that its members are held individually responsible when the wrong body is cremated.

Adam Tipert, a funeral director in Bridgewater and chair of the Nova Scotia Board of Registration of Embalmers and Funeral Directors, said a recent Court of Appeal ruling that exonerated a Cape Breton funeral director who was involved in the second wrongful cremation in the province in five years sends the wrong message.

He said the courts are putting the onus on funeral homes, when legislative changes after the first incident in 2017 were intended to hold funeral directors responsible.

"The fact that a human remains came into the custody of a funeral home and no particular individual ever took the responsibility to open the body pouch to even confirm an identity, to ever confirm this is a male or this is a female and to confirm documentation matches, in my opinion, that is just absolute neglect," Tipert said.

"An individual has to be held responsible."

The recent court ruling found Joseph Curry was not required by law to check the identity of a body before cremation and said a mistake in 2021 was made by the medical examiner's service at the hospital.

The unanimous decision found the law requires funeral homes to verify the identity of a body before cremation, not the funeral director.

Following the wrongful cremation, Service Nova Scotia suspended the licence of Forest Haven Memorial Gardens near Sydney — the funeral home where Curry worked in 2021 — for two months.

The board of registration cancelled Curry's funeral director's licence, but he took the matter to Nova Scotia Supreme Court, which reinstated his licence.

The Court of Appeal agreed with the lower court's ruling.

Tipert said the board tried to amend the law in 2018 following an incident in Berwick, assuming that making funeral homes responsible would include the funeral directors they employ. 

"Our hope was basically that the appeal court would understand the purpose of the legislation and how it is to be used within the funeral sector in the province, but obviously they failed to see it through our eyesight," he said.

"It's disappointing to know that there's funeral directors that choose to operate their business in the loopholes of the legislation instead of operating on the line and with what the intended understanding of the legislation was meant to be."

Tipert said the board is working with Service Nova Scotia to change the law again, trying to make sure no loved ones have to deal with a wrongful cremation in future.

"We realize that their grief can never really be ever finalized, but this whole process just continues to perpetuate their grief and I'm sure it's disappointing to them," he said.

"My message to them would be I hope they see that the regulatory board is doing what we can to try to make sure that this doesn't happen again. I know I've said that before and it's disappointing that I have to say it again."

In an emailed statement, the Funeral Service Association of Nova Scotia, which represents funeral homes, said its efforts to strengthen the rules after the first wrongful cremation in 2017 were "largely ignored."

"We are aware that there is now a new effort to revise the acts and regulations that govern funeral service and FSANS has had the opportunity to provide some meaningful input.

"But we call upon the government of Nova Scotia to fully engage with our association to guarantee everyone's obligations, at every step of the death-care process [are] crystal clear."

In an email, Service Nova Scotia said it is working with others to review the regulations and identify ways to strengthen them, but it didn't provide specifics.