P.E.I. to step up funeral home inspections after former director convicted of fraud

The P.E.I. Funeral Services and Professions Board will receive $50,000 per year for the next five years from the provincial government to step up inspections of funeral homes on the Island.

Board chair Nathaniel Lamoureux says the inspections will go beyond health and safety guidelines to include a focus on prearranged funeral funds held in trust as well as funeral home audits.

The board has been working closely with the province since former funeral director Lowell Oakes was convicted of defrauding clients out of money for pre-paid funerals, Lamoureux said.

Oakes, the former owner of Dawson Funeral Home, was convicted on 66 counts of fraud, 36 of which were for fraud over $5,000. RCMP found cases that went back as far as 1996. Oakes told his victims the money was going into a trust, as required by law, but the trusts were never created.

Issues with the way Oakes was handling prearranged funeral funds came to light during a routine inspection, said members of the funeral services board.

"We really need to figure out... a way to prevent this from happening again in the future," Lamoureux said.

"We want to make sure that Islanders' funds are protected and funeral homes are operating within the guidelines."

Lamoureux said the system is still in the development stages, but an Ontario-based company is being contracted to carry out the inspections in order to ensure they're being conducted by a third party without any connections to the funeral homes on P.E.I.