If your loved one passes away while under the care of a facility, such as a nursing home or a hospital, staff from the facility will contact you and notify appropriate authorities.

If the death was imminent and occurred at home, you will need to get in touch with the physician or emergency medical personnel as the cause of death must be identified and indicated in legal documents.

In the event that no one was present at the time of death, you will need to contact the police before moving the deceased to another location.

Our caring staff can assist you with the next steps after a death has occurred. We will collect information from you in order to facilitate the transfer of your loved one’s remains to the funeral home. We will determine at this point if pre-arrangements have been made and whether or not embalming will be required. While of course you can ask any questions you have in your mind during this call, note that once you visit the funeral home, we will discuss the arrangements in greater detail.

During this call, you’ll also be informed about the things that you need to bring with you to the arrangements. We have a list to assist you with these items which includes a photo, information for vital statistics, service information and clothes to dress the deceased in for burial or cremation. Feel free to call us whenever you feel the need to. Remember that we are here to listen to you, help you and guide you during this difficult time.

During your first meeting with us, we will discuss the arrangements for your loved one’s service. We will go through, step by step the decisions that need to be made in terms of your families wishes for your loved one. We will go through whether you’d prefer burial or cremation arrangements and you would select a casket or cremation casket, schedule a time and date for the services, decide on the location of the burial, draft an obituary notice, choose flowers and participants in the service.

We would also use this opportunity to inquire about your loved one for us to have a better understanding of the person the services will honor. 

We will require a copy of the will of the deceased to provide us with an accurate listing of the executor and authorized decision maker for the arrangements. We will provide Funeral Directors Statements of Death to the executor listed in the will to assist in the process of settling the estate. If no will exists, there is a protocol for us to determine who the authorized decision maker is and we will follow if required. A provincial death certificate may be required if the deceased owned any titled land or property and we will help you determine if one should be ordered and who should apply for it.