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The association that represents professionals who work in the province’s funeral industry is pushing the Quebec government to pass a new law for a reason you might not expect.

“To be more severe with us. We must be the only ones asking that,” said Valérie Garneau, president of the Corporation des thanatologues du Québec.

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The law that governs funeral homes in Quebec is only a public-health law and it dates to 1974, Garneau said. “It’s for funeral homes, but nowhere does it talk about human dignity or training or anything else, the things we didn’t hear about 40 years ago.”

“Even worse it doesn’t talk about cremation,” Garneau said of the preferred final wishes of about 65 to 70 per cent of Quebecers.

The laws are lot stricter in other provinces, she said. “Just that there is ongoing training, the things that we see in other provinces, that here in Quebec we don’t have at all.”

The way the law is, anybody in Quebec can be a funeral director. Tomorrow morning, you decide to become a funeral director you can just as much as me who has training. — Valérie Garneau, president of the Corporation des thanatologues du Québec

As an example, Garneau said she finished her program in 1997 and has done other training since, but there is nothing compelling her to do so.