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Robin Pope and Jean Clement oppose addition to the funeral home. (JOHN MAHONEY/The Gazette)

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Crematorium sparks opposition in Dorval

Doesn't belong on Lakeshore Drive: critics

Max Harrold
The Gazette
Thursday, April 17, 2008

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Robin Pope and Jean Clement oppose addition to the funeral home. (JOHN MAHONEY/The Gazette)

A crematorium being erected in Dorval’s scenic lakeside village has some worried the “creepiness factor” will drive away business and stain the area’s image.
The crematorium is part of $600,000 in renovations being carried out at the 50-year-old Lakeshore Cardinal Funeral Home on Lakeshore Drive near Dahlia Ave. A new chapel, a columbarium – a chamber for urns – and the crematorium are expected to be operational by the end of summer.
Robin Pope, co-owner of Wild Willy’s, an ice cream parlour across the street from the funeral home, said the crematorium is inappropriate for the area.
“We’ve been trying to build a small town kind of feeling,” she said, of the 50 to 60 stores and businesses on Lakeshore Drive between St. Charles and Dorval Avenues.
People like to stroll along the street lined with restaurants with terraces, she explained. A crematorium would add “a creepiness factor,” she said, adding that she is not opposed to the funeral home but would prefer it continue doing its cremations elsewhere.
“There’s a place for everything,” Pope said. “I sell ice cream but I don’t have cows in my backyard to make it. So I wish they wouldn’t burn bodies across the street.”
Julie, a 25-year-old resident who lives nearby and who spoke on condition her last name not be used, said the crematorium “doesn’t sit well morally” with her.
“There’s a little bistro near there where I like to go to and sit and have a drink in the evening,” she said. “It won’t feel the same if there’s a chimney nearby and I know bodies are being burned.”
Jean Clément, a sales rep who lost a Dorval city council seat in the last election, said crematoriums are usually in a cemetery or “far away from residential neighbourhoods.”
Following his questions about the crematorium at the March 31 Dorval council meeting, Clément obtained a copy of the renovations permit from the city clerk. The permit describes the “the extension and construction of a chapel-columbarium” but does not mention a crematorium.
He hopes public opposition to the project will force a halt to the crematorium’s construction while the city and the funeral home look at other options, like relocating the crematorium.
Jean-Charles Cardinal, co-owner of the funeral home, said the full building plans do specify a crematorium. The crematorium’s 15-metre high chimney will not emit any smoke, dust or odours, he added.
“This is not just some oven we bought on Ebay,” Cardinal said. The $55,000 piece of equipment will adhere to stringent environmental standards laid down by the Montreal Island agglomeration and approved by Environment Quebec, he said.
The crematorium is composed of two stacked furnaces, he explained. After a coffin and body are incinerated in the upper furnace, the resulting gases are sucked into the lower furnace, where the temperature is 1,000 degrees C, Cardinal said.
“At that temperature, the molecules are eliminated. What comes out of the chimney is just heat.”
Monique Courcelles, a nearby resident whose late husband’s viewing was at the funeral home, said pollution in the area is already bad enough, with dust from planes flying overhead and emissions from the water filtration plant adjacent to the funeral home.
“My husband was cremated, but they didn’t do it there,” she said. “I see no need for them to have a crematorium on the premises.”
City of Dorval officials said they were not happy about the project but their hands were tied when it came to approving the permit. The crematorium “is a piece of equipment, not a building,” Dorval urban planning director Mario St-Jean said. “It’s part of the expansion and it respects all of our bylaws and regulations, so we couldn’t block it.
“We were told it will be 1,000 times less polluting than the average home fireplace,” St-Jean said, adding he and other Dorval officials visited a crematorium in east-end Montreal as it was functioning and there was no odour or smoke.
Dorval Mayor Edgar Rouleau said the city will be watching closely to see if the crematorium meets environmental norms.
“If it doesn’t, we’ll close it down,” Rouleau said. “That’s the last card we have.”
There will be a public meeting on the issue organized by the Citizens of Dorval for Democracy on April 22 at 7:30 p.m. at the Pine Beach Community Association Hall, 1510 Herron Rd. in Dorval.