That the Community and Operations Services Committee recommend to City Council:
Whereas at the Community and Operations Services Committee meeting of April 24, 2023, Report CO-23-11 dated March 15, 2023 outlining the feasibility of memorializing unmarked graves for Social Service recipients was tabled, and;
Whereas at its meeting of May 26, 2025, Council referred Report CO-23-11 to staff for an updated report; and,
Whereas Ontario Regulation 30/11, Funeral, Burial, and Cremation Service Act, 2002, provides that a cemetery operator shall provide a lot and the interment of a Social Service recipient upon receiving written direction from a delivery agent, as defined in the Ontario Works Act, 1997; and,
Whereas the City of Oshawa receives $1,300 from the delivery agent to provide a service that currently costs approximately $3,275, in accordance with the Fees and Charges By-Law 109-2024, as amended; and,
Whereas Union Cemetery has provided interments for 102 Social Services recipients; and,
Whereas fifty-seven (57) of the Social Service interments have been memorialized by the families; and,
Whereas Union Cemetery has approximately 27,700 interments in total within the 32 acres; and,
Whereas of the 27,700 interments, approximately sixty (60) to seventy (70) per cent have been memorialized as identified in Report CO-23-11 dated March 15, 2023, leaving thirty (30) to forty (40) per cent unmarked; and,
Whereas the memorialization of interments is a decision made by the Interment Rights Holder(s) who may have various reasons for not memorializing; and,
Whereas to staff’s knowledge, no other cemetery operator provides complimentary memorials for Social Service recipient interments; and,
Whereas to staff’s knowledge, Union Cemetery is the only cemetery in the Region of Durham that offers an online interactive map, allowing users to search for and locate decedents within the cemetery,
Therefore be it resolved that based on Item CO-25-26 dated June 9, 2025, Union Cemetery continue to recognize all decedents, whether the grave is marked or not, through the online interactive map only.