An alkaline hydrolysis device is seen at the Newcastle Funeral Home in Newcastle, Ont. on Sept. 18, 2019. The device is an alternative to burial or cremation, where a process involving heat, water and an alkaline chemical breaks remains down.Trevor Charbonneau/Handout
Inside Osgoode Hall this week, a debate has erupted over how to dispose of a body. Specifically, the argument is over whether the province should allow a new process marketed as an environmentally friendly alternative to cremation, by dissolving the deceased rather than burning the corpse in flames.
The case, an appeal before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice Divisional Court, comes with high stakes for the funeral industry, since the fate of the technology may hang in the balance in Canada’s most populated province – and potentially elsewhere in the country.
On one side of the feud is Trevor Charbonneau, the owner of a funeral home in Newcastle, Ont., that was granted a licence by the province in late 2017 to operate a low-temperature alkaline hydrolysis machine, and soon began doing a booming business. The device, which resembles a large metal cylinder, uses a concoction of water, alkaline chemicals, heat and pressure “to accelerate natural decomposition” and break the body down to an end-product that resembles the ashes produced by cremation.
On the other side is the Bereavement Authority of Ontario (BAO), the funeral-industry regulator that gave Mr. Charbonneau the go-ahead to begin offering the service, but then had a change of heart last summer amid concerns about potential health risks, and now wants to revoke his licence.
The BAO said it did not realize Mr. Charbonneau intended to operate what is known as a low-temperature machine, instead of a high-temperature unit. High-temperature machines complete the process faster by using higher heat levels and are already licensed in the province. The BAO is now trying to undo its decision, saying it didn’t fully understand the technology at the time.
“I’m not sure at the time of licensing we knew there was a distinction,” BAO chief executive officer Carey Smith said in an interview. “We’re just playing catch-up as a regulator, really, is what’s happening.”
The BAO is concerned about the byproducts of the procedure, since liquefied remains such as organs and bodily fluids from the dissolving process make their way into the sewers at the funeral home, much the same way fluids and tissues drained from the embalming process at a funeral home are disposed down drains. Mr. Smith said the BAO wants more evidence that the low-temperature procedure will destroy any diseases that may be present.
But Mr. Charbonneau says he’s being unfairly singled out because of the success of the service, which became popular among his customers. He argues the health fears are unproven, and that there is enough science to support the safety of low-temperature hydrolysis, which breaks down the body using temperatures of about 95.5 C over 14 hours, compared with the high-temperature process, which takes about six hours and reaches temperatures of up to 150 C. The result in both cases is an effluent that is a "sterile DNA and RNA free” liquid, the funeral home director states in court documents. The "alkalinity,” more than the temperature, is what sterilizes the remains, he said.
Public Health Ontario recently issued a report saying “more research is needed to confirm its effectiveness," while the BAO said there is “a lack of consensus among the experts as to whether the effluent causes a risk to the public.”
In court documents, the BAO accused Mr. Charbonneau of misleading the province over the machine in his licence application. But the funeral-home director says he sent his advertising brochures and other information to the regulator for approval. The material stated he was offering the only low-temperature machine in the province. Mr. Charbonneau says he also opened his door to Mr. Smith and BAO inspectors to come view the apparatus, but they never came.
“If I was trying to hide the fact that I had a low-temperature machine, how could I be inviting them all to come witness the first process?” Mr. Charbonneau said.
The BAO revoked Mr. Charbonneau’s licence last summer after an unannounced inspection, which alleged his facility was disorganized and potentially unsafe. Mr. Charbonneau hired an outside consultant to fix the problems flagged in the inspection, and appealed to a provincial tribunal to reinstate the licence. The tribunal sided with Mr. Charbonneau, saying the regulator hadn’t proven there was enough of a health risk from the new machine to shut him down.
The BAO then appealed the tribunal decision, which is now being heard at Osgoode Hall, and the licence has been on hold since then.
Mr. Charbonneau’s camp has pointed to other jurisdictions where low-temperature units are in use, including Quebec, Saskatchewan, and 40 States in the United States, as well as at the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto, and the Canadian High Arctic Research Station in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.
Neither side has presented a definitive study to support their arguments. The regulator put forward a review of literature on the subject, while Mr. Charbonneau submitted a study he said cost $25,000 to commission, which the BAO criticized was not yet peer-reviewed.
The concept itself is not new. Natural alkaline hydrolysis is the same process that breaks down bodies buried in cemeteries over a long time. Mechanically assisted alkaline hydrolysis “essentially accelerates this natural process to hours," Mr. Charbonneau says in court documents. Though the process has been around since the 1800s, it’s only in recent times that it has been commercialized and billed as a less-expensive and environmentally friendly alternative to fire cremation.
Though alkaline hydrolysis is not cremation, he said the vast majority of his cremation business began opting for alkaline hydrolysis. He believes other industry players are unhappy with him as a result. In an e-mail tabled as evidence by Mr. Charbonneau’s lawyers, an unnamed person sent a copy of Mr. Charbonneau’s advertising to the BAO complaining that he was touting the technology as green cremation, even though it’s not technically cremation. “Seriously, this guy needs a trimming!” the person told the BAO.
The BAO says the case is about public health and safety concerns as it tries to come to terms with how to regulate new ways to handle bodies after death, including organizations who are pushing for composting technologies to be adopted.
Mr. Charbonneau suspects other provinces are watching the dispute closely. In addition to the nearly $200,000 Mr. Charbonneau spent on the machine after obtaining the licence, he said his legal bills are now roughly $300,000, and he has lost that much in business while his licence has been suspended.
“It’s unbelievable the damage that this is costing," Mr. Charbonneau said. “I just want it to be over. I just want to be able to offer it to families and continue on my way and I never thought I’d find myself in this position. But I’ve invested too much to walk away at this point. So I either win and continue on, or I’ll have to go out of business."
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Grant Robertson