It's been almost two years since Tracy Lenes' son Max Paczulla died at the Gahcho Kue diamond mine.
He was working for contractor SMS Equipment Inc. when he perished. An NWT Territorial Court judge fined the company $200,000 in late July after it pleaded guilty to one count under the NWT Safety Act. Lenes said the outcome came as a bit of a shock, and was disappointing.
"I found out about it when I phoned the courthouse and the court clerk had told me what happened in court that day. I didn't even know it was a trial and didn't know they were entering a plea," she said. "For a [large] corporation, I don't think a fine is all that significant. And I don't know what it means in terms of safety for employees in the future and in the workplace."
Lenes now has her focus set on making sure the NWT has its own funeral services regulatory board.
"Every other province has a funeral services regulatory board, in one form or another SA国际影视传媒� an actual agency that monitors that industry and those businesses," she said.
In June, she said she contacted the premier's office, voicing her concerns about her experience at McKenna Funeral Home.
"The stress that McKenna Funeral Home caused me by refusing to tell me where Max was after the Medical Examiner's Office had released him, unbelievable," said Lenes. "What would be the benefit to a funeral home to fail to give the location of where [someone's] son is?"
She added that she still doesn't know why the McKenna Funeral Home copied and pasted the same obituary that Lenes had written for a funeral home in Calgary.
"People in Calgary had come up to me thinking, [Max's] funeral was in Yellowknife. And a number of people missed his funeral because they honestly thought it was in Yellowknife."
Janice McKenna, the owner of the funeral home, said she can't speak to specifics of any particular case, but did say the practice for each funeral director is to work with legal next of kin.
"We would repatriate that person, if they were full-body, back to the funeral home wherever they were calling from," she said.
Though she didn't go into details about Lenes' situation, McKenna said she doesn't want the distraught mother to be any more upset than she already is.
"This is a hard enough business, it's a really tough place for families. That particular death is extremely tragic, sudden. So, the grief is, I'm sure, horrific."
As for the obituary issue, McKenna said she's not aware of this instance, but likened it to a journalist's work.
"It would be common practice for a journalist, for instance, to go into somebody else's website, have a look, and if it was good, take it. That's the internet."
In a follow-up email, Lenes stated that, as far as she understands, Paczulla's partner would have been the legal next of kin.
Lenes explained that during a phone conference, his partner advised McInnis and Holloway SA国际影视传媒� a funeral home based in Calgary SA国际影视传媒� that it was up to Lenes or Paczulla's father what they wanted done with Paczulla.
"I said, in that same meeting, I want a viewing and to have Max come home as soon as possible," Lenes wrote.
A day later, Lenes said that Audrey Henderson, from McKenna Funeral Home, phoned her asking what she wanted done with her son. Lenes said they had picked McInnis and Holloway for their funeral home and wanted their son home for a viewing. Accordingly to Lenes, Henderson said it would take days to have his body prepared for it.
"I said McInnis and Holloway could do that," wrote Lenes. "She replied, 'Oh, we have a contract.'"
When Lenes asked where her son was, she said Henderson couldn't tell her.
"I asked why and her answer: 'Oh, you'd be surprised,'" Lenes wrote. "At no time did she say to me she was acting on instructions from any next of kin."
Henderson retired about a year or so ago, McKenna said.
Yellowknifer contacted Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) as well as the Department of Health and Social Services for more information on why the GNWT has no funeral services regulatory board. Health and Social Services did not respond prior to Yellowknifer's publication deadline.
Jay Boast, a senior communications advisor for MACA, explained that it's difficult to talk to any GNWT official about this legislation because it does not exist.
He said that Health and Social Services has legislation that deals with health-related issues pertaining to deceased bodies. He added that MACA oversees business licensing and consumer protection but does not regulate businesses.
