With its rolling hills, gently winding pathways and immaculate flower beds, Mount Pleasant Cemetery is one of the most serene parts of Toronto. The Doric pillars and statues on the imposing mausoleums dotted about the gardens testify that, for much of its 137-year history, this has been the place where many of the city’s great and good have chosen to rest in peace.
However, that tranquility is now being threatened by an acrimonious series of disputes between the Mount Pleasant Group (MPG), which owns the cemetery, and some of its neighbours, who are highly critical of the way it is being run. Having tried and failed to fight the construction of a new visitation centre at the cemetery’s Moore Avenue entrance in the mid-2000s, a group of campaigning residents is now going on the attack once again.
The latest lightening rod for their ire is the cemetery’s plans to install new incinerators at its crematorium building close to Inglewood Drive.
With a rapid increase in demand for cremations in recent years, MPG wants to ditch its dated 1970s incinerators and replace them with a modern one shipped over from England. The cemetery management claim their efficient new burner will allow them to increase cremation capacity while reducing emissions.
But some nearby residents aren’t convinced. They say the cemetery has no business burning bodies in a built-up area, and they don’t want the crematorium refurbished — they want it closed down.
“We have had 40 years of this crematorium at the end of the street,” said Margot Boyd, who lives near Mount Pleasant Road and St. Clair Avenue East and is an outspoken critic of the cemetery. “Our neighbourhood and neighbourhoods all around, depending on which way the wind is blowing, have been breathing in who knows what for 40 years.”
When a body goes up in smoke, a host of unpleasant compounds are released, including poisonous substances like arsenic, carbon monoxide, lead and mercury.
Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries insists its current incinerators meet standards for safe levels of exposure laid down by the Ontario Ministry of the Environment and that its new equipment will be the first in North America to be fitted with air scrubbers that will cut emissions further, by about 99 per cent in most cases.
But where the cemetery sees cutting-edge technology, Boyd sees an untested design.
“It’s new and there aren’t many statistics on it. It’s a brand new technology,” she said.
For the campaigners, the crematorium is just too close to their homes, and fancy filtering technology won’t change that.
The building is 16.5 metres from the nearest residential property, which is far below the 300-metre separation that the city now demands for new crematoriums under a planning bylaw adopted in April.
Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam, whose Toronto Centre-Rosedale ward borders the cemetery to the south, has taken up the residents’ fight.
Wong-Tam said she is concerned for the health of the area’s children and people with respiratory problems, adding, “This is simply far too close to a residential neighbourhood.”
Because the new equipment will be installed in the current building, the city has no power to block the proposal under planning laws, so Wong-Tam is seeking leave to appeal against a decision by the Ministry of the Environment.
She contends that the ministry acted outside its jurisdiction when it issued a licence for the new equipment, and she wants it revoked.
Wong-Tam, who said she is a Buddhist and wishes to be cremated, fears that with the growing demand for the service, total emissions could go up even if the technology is cleaner.
“The more we burn, the more emissions there will be,” she said, pointing out that in Toronto even hospitals are not allowed incinerators.
But execs at the Mount Pleasant Group of Cemeteries said they are baffled by the fuss, since they have been doing cremations at the site for decades.
“This is basically the continuation of providing cremation services with new, state-of-the-art, environmentally conscious equipment,” said Rick Cowan, VP of marketing, pointing out that air-quality improvements were a major consideration in MPG’s decision to buy new equipment rather than overhauling its existing gear.
Cowan also noted that, although certainly vociferous, the critics do not appear to be too numerous — an assertion given weight by the residents’ associations of nearby South Eglinton and Deer Park, both of which said they had no concerns with the plans.
“All we are doing is trying to accommodate the increase in those that are choosing cremation,” Cowan said, adding that, for the cemetery, this is “business as usual.”
Although preparatory work has been started at the site, for now at least, MPG’s plans are on hold. It is waiting to hear the outcome of Wong-Tam’s appeal before it places the order for any new equipment.