Canada

Former funeral director. How to leave a body unclaimed was an unfortunately common discussion I've had with people. It starts with "What is the cheapest option?" Followed by "What if I can't afford that?"

It makes no sense that the government won't assist a family with burial expenses but will pay to bury an unclaimed body. The Canada Pension Plan death benefit is only $2,500. It's taxable and the amount has not increased in over a decade. The cheapest funeral options now cost about $3,000 - $4,000. People shouldn't need to worry about their financial situation immediately after their loved one dies.

Pretty crazy that cremation isn’t a public service

What are we paying tax for if it isn’t to burn our bodies then throw us in a landfill

When my father died, the Uber driver taking me from my hotel to my family was a woman in the same boat. She told me she was breaking her neck to earn enough in the next couple of days to claim her father's remains from a funeral home. We chatted about our situations. I asked if she'd be offended if I gave her a donation to help. She was so fucking grateful. We could afford the expenses, so it was a real reminder of how barbaric the system is when you're living on the edge monetarily. She didn't even have time to grieve because she had to hustle / grind.

This kind of thing won't stop until rich people start having to deal with unplanned burials.

Make of that what you will.

I'm not a finance expert but I feel like in the long run it'd be cheaper to raise the death benefit or subsidize cremation services than to build dead body storage facilities all over the country.

It's crazy that it's up to individuals whether they can afford to have their relatives buried. It should be one of the first basic things a civilized country takes care of.

The government needs to regulate the funeral industry and lower costs.

Wandering around the Internet a bit, it looks like the cheapest option for disposing of a body in Canada today is basic cremation (no funeral service, no urn, no coffin, no enbalming). Even that runs to around $2000, with some variation between funeral homes. If the CPP death benefit is $2500 before taxes, it might barely cover that, although I expect it would be tight. The major costs are the actual use of the crematorium (~40% of the cost on its own), paying funeral home staff to transport and refrigerate the body, and costs associated with legal documentation.

If you want to bury instead of burn, the cost baloons because cemetary plots and the services cemetaries require you to buy to make use of them are ridiculously expensive. Maybe what we need is a return to the pauper's field—$20 plots, no landscaping, and you dig your own hole (with maybe a quick check from someone official to make sure it's deep enough for sanitary purposes), transport the corpse in whatever vehicle is available, have anyone willing say a few words, get family or friends to help you lower the unfinished softwood crate-coffin, and add whatever marker you can afford after you fill the hole back in. You know, like poor people used to do up until a hundred or so years ago. You'll still need the body refrigeration, and the documentation, but it should be possible to get the costs down by considerable if we focus more on the necessary and less on the pretty and on overpriced "respect" for a deceased who, by definition, cannot be aware of it.

For now, though, set aside some money specifically to pay for disposing of your body, if you can. You heirs will thank you for it.

I guess just bury me in a ditch, or just leave me there if burying is too expensive. 😮‍💨

We have on the west coast a few memorial forests -- unsure what the fees are for a plot there, but I think those are a great idea.

I wonder how green burials compare with cremation?