Draft:Arbor Memorial Inc.

• Comment: We don't need a list of every single cemetery they own, Wikipedia isn't a business directory. The Services section is written like an advert.
  Please also remove all the external links from the body of the text. See WP:EXTERNAL. Qcne (talk) 18:05, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

• Comment: Reads as a WP:PROMO to me. Ktkvtsh (talk) 18:05, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

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Arbor Memorial is an incorporated, family-owned Canadian company engaged in providing end-of-life products and services across 8 provinces, including burials and interments, cremations, funerals, receptions, bereavement counselling and estate planning guidance.  

First established in 1947, the company now owns and operates a network of 42 cemeteries, 29 crematoria and 96 funeral homes in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, making it the principal provider of its kind in the nation.     

Despite its size, the public may not readily recognize the national chain, as the company’s locations are individually branded under a generic name or a local family name.  Arbor Memorial Inc. also owns generically-branded cremation companies, including Simple Choice Cremation, which offers basic services in Windsor, London, Essex County and the Greater Toronto Area in Ontario.

Arbor Memorial employs more than 2,800 people, and its main centre of operations is located in Toronto, Ontario.

Origins

Founded in 1947 by Daniel J. (Dan) Scanlan, the company that would eventually be named Arbor Memorial Inc. opened its first cemetery, Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in London, Ontario. Recognizing that a cemetery business must be grown over many generations, Scanlan developed a long-term plan to build and acquire end-of-life facilities that would provide more than just places sanctioned for the final disposition of the deceased. He envisioned a family of cemeteries and full-service funeral homes that would serve the needs of the living.

Forest Lawn became the company’s first location in a network of cemeteries offering flush to the ground bronze memorials to mark the grave sites, an initiative designed to make the cemetery more park-like in atmosphere. Customers were provided the company’s assurances that the property would be maintained in perpetuity, and were offered the option to purchase burial lots and memorialization products in advance of need.

Echoing the format in other city centres, Scanlan soon added additional properties including Chapel Lawn (Winnipeg, Manitoba) and White Chapel (Hamilton, Ontario) both in 1949, and Memory Gardens (Breslau, Ontario) in 1950. In 1951, Resthaven (Scarborough, Ontario) and Chapel Hill (Stoney Creek, Ontario) became part of the growing company.  

Under Daniel J. Scanlan’s direction, cemetery expansion continued across the country throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s.  

Historical Developments

Public to Private

On August 13, 1973, Scanlan’s company, then named Canadian Memorial Services Limited, became public, trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE). The company evolved through several name changes before becoming Arbor Memorial Services Inc. (ticker symbol: ABO.A, ABO.B)

On November 27, 2012, Arbor Memorial Services Inc. exited the Toronto Stock Exchange. At that time TD Securities Inc., an independent valuator, placed the worth of each share between $32 and $38. The company was valued at approximately $375 million CAD.

The purchasing company, sponsored by a group of existing shareholders, included Scanfield Holdings Ltd., Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. (TSX:FFH) and JC Clark Ltd.

Expansion and Main Acquisitions (1970 - 2024)

In 1976, Arbor Memorial Services Inc. established its first mausoleum, located at Glendale Memorial Gardens in Toronto, Ontario. The company’s first crematorium was built 2 years later at Rideau Memorial Gardens in Montréal, Quebec.

By 1982, the company moved its head office to its current location at 2 Jane Street, Toronto, Ontario, M6S 4W8.

Arbor opened its first on-site funeral home in Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1983. By building a funeral home on the grounds of the cemetery, Chapel Lawn Memorial Gardens could offer their memorial services, interments and related end-of-life products at one location. For their customers, this simplified the task of planning, reduced paperwork and eliminated the need for a funeral procession. The development of on-site facilities also improved communication and coordination between funeral and cemetery personnel. That same year, Arbor Memorial introduced pre-planning options for funeral arrangements. Pre-arrangement of cemetery plans had been available since the company’s founding in 1947.

1984 marked Arbor‘s first acquisition of an existing funeral home — Desjardins Funeral Home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. By 1985, operations were expanded to Florida. The company eventually divested its U.S. properties by 1994.

In 1987, Arbor Memorial founded the Trillium Funeral Service Corporation, which provided the company license to own and operate funeral homes in the province of Ontario. The Corporation was later amalgamated into Arbor Memorial Inc. in October of 2012. Of historical note, on-site funeral homes (funeral homes operating on the grounds of a cemetery) were prohibited in Ontario until the repeal of the province’s Cemeteries Act and the establishment of the Funeral, Burial and Cremation Service Act in 2022.

While flush to the ground memorials had been a predominant feature of Arbor cemeteries to date, upright memorials and monuments were being introduced at some locations in 1990. To extend their purview within local communities, two cemeteries in Calgary, Mountain View Funeral Home & Cemetery and Eden Brook Funeral Home & Cemetery, created dedicated sections reserved for exclusive use by the Roman-Catholic Church in 1991. By the turn of the century, Arbor Memorial had established its first dedicated Catholic garden in Ontario.  

In 1993, the company’s annual revenue had exceeded $100 million CAD.

Arbor Memorial’s first on-site memorial chapel and reception centre opened at Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in London, Ontario in 1997. The following year, Highland Hills Memorial Gardens opened in Stouffville, Ontario, a facility designed to reflect Canada’s multicultural faiths and traditions. By the end of the 90s, Arbor opened its first combination funeral home and cemetery sales office at Glenwood Memorial Gardens in Edmonton, Alberta.

As the new century began, Arbor continued to develop assets across the country with new construction and the purchasing of existing facilities. In 2000, Arbor completed Highland Funeral Home in Toronto, Ontario, the company’s first off-site, stand-alone funeral home. Arbor completed its largest acquisition to date in 2005, with the purchase of Kelly Funeral Homes in Ottawa, Ontario. Kelly Funeral Homes has been in operation since 1954 and is comprised of 6 funeral homes in the region.

By 2006, Arbor’s total company assets exceeded $1 billion CAD.

Toll Funeral Home (Brantford, Ontario) joined Arbor Memorial in 2021, and Gray’s Funeral Chapel (Prince Albert, Saskatchewan) followed in 2022. In that same year, Arbor acquired the 3 chapels of the Windsor Chapel Group in Windsor, Ontario.

The company celebrated its 75th Anniversary in 2022, and in 2023 purchased Steele Funeral Home (Bellville, ON), Bay Gardens Funeral Home (Hamilton, Ontario) and the historic Bayview Cemetery & Crematorium in Burlington, Ontario.

In 2024, Oakridge Memorial Gardens in Sackville, Nova Scotia, and Dodsworth and Brown in Ancaster, Ontario both started construction on new funeral facilities in their respective cities.

At this time, Glendale Memorial Gardens (Etobicoke, ON) moved into the Phase lll development of their All Saints Mausoleum. On completion, the building will accommodate more than 6,300 interments. In addition to providing crypt spaces for the housing of caskets, the expanded mausoleum also includes niche rooms and niche walls for the permanent placement of cremation urns.  

Death and Grieving in the Time of COVID

As the COVID-19 pandemic spread across Canada and the globe in the early 2000s, the public need for funeral services was on the rise. However, with mitigation efforts placing regimented limits on social gatherings and travel, families faced with a death could no longer choose a traditional funeral and reception where large numbers of guests could interact in close proximity. The restrictions necessitated that Arbor branch locations pivot to a new operating model that would provide alternative methods for families to honour the deceased and to grieve, while adhering to mandates.  Where possible, ceremonies were held outside, or deferred until a later date. Drive-thru visitations at funeral home entranceways enabled visitors to pay their respects from the safety and distance of their vehicle. Arbor employed video conferencing technologies, hosting small scale gatherings with live-streaming and interactive media to enable an unlimited number of guests to take part from other locations. The company also initiated a pilot-project which utilized a telepresence robot characterized as, ‘an iPad with a set of wheels on it.  A guest or officiant restricted from attending a service in person, could take control of the robot and its camera to interact in the room remotely.

In memoriam of Canadians lost to COVID-19, the company planted 20,000 red geraniums at Arbor locations across the country in 2021. In Breslau, Ontario, in 2023, hundreds of people attended the unveiling of the Wall of Memories at Memory Gardens Funeral Home & Cemetery, honouring those who lost their lives during and before the COVID-10 pandemic.

Partnerships and Programs

Creating a legal Will, establishing an Executor and Power of Attorney, and pre-arranging funeral and cemetery wishes are all facets of estate planning.   Arbor Memorial has forged strategic partnerships with companies aligned with the goal of providing consumers the resources to prepare estate plans, including Willful, an online Will service, and TruStage Life of Canada (formerly Assurant Life of Canada). Arbor Memorial Inc. also partners with businesses involved with merchandising and the practical operations of the death care industry.

Arbor Alliance Program

The Arbor Alliance Program offers a special opportunity to provide extra benefits for employees or members of eligible groups, associations, parishes or unions, with no cost to partner organizations. Arbor Alliance Partner members and their immediate family members save on funeral and cemetery fees at the time of need, and even more when they make an informed choice to plan ahead. Our partners include the Royal Canadian Legion, the National Association of Federal Retirees, Applaud, Willful, and many more.

Precious Metal Recycling Program

The act of cremating a body will incinerate most biological material at temperatures exceeding 800 degrees celsius, however, metals from medical implants, dentistry, jewelry and clothing remain intact. Arbor Memorial Inc. collaborates with companies including Core Scientific which are engaged in the post-cremation collection and recycling of titanium, stainless steel, silver, gold, platinum, palladium and other precious and non-precious metals extracted from cremated remains. The collection process is conducted with the consent of the deceased’s family, and proceeds from the selling of recovered material is donated by Core Scientific to the Arbor Memorial Foundation (AMF) for charitable distribution. According to Core Scientific’s internal reporting in 2023, they contributed $238,000 CAD to the AMF since the start of the partnership in 2019.

Arbor Memorial Foundation Community Outreach

The Arbor Memorial Foundation (BRN#: 805854114RR0001) is a registered, private charitable foundation created by Arbor Memorial Inc. for ‘purposes beneficial to the community’, with assets totaling $599,328 in 2023 as reported by Charity Data (Blumbergs Professional Corporation).  Since 2011, the AMF has been a vehicle by which Arbor employees can request that monies raised through donations and events be targeted to the charitable causes that are of personal significance to them. While the Foundation supports national organizations such as the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada and Alzheimer Society of Canada, its primary focus is on the local communities where the employees live and work.

According to internal reporting, the AMF made donations totaling $370,000 to employee-chosen charities in 2023. The Arbor Memorial Foundation has gifted over $2.3 million dollars since the Foundation’s inception in 2011.   

Community Outreach

Outside of the Arbor Memorial Foundation, Arbor’s funeral homes and cemeteries contribute to life in their local communities by taking part in, or by hosting, annual public events including Remembrance Day, Ching Ming, All Saint’s Day, Mothers Day and Father’s Day, Candlelight Services for seasonal holidays and Rainbow Bridge events that honour pets who have passed away.

Arbor locations sponsor local causes, teams, guilds and associations, support cultural and faith groups, and provide scholarships and bursaries to varied organizations including the Council of Caribbean Associations Canada (CCAC), Canadian Army, Navy and Air Force Cadets, and others.

A Best Managed Company

Established in 1993, Canada’s Best Managed Companies is the country’s leading business awards program, recognizing excellence in Canadian headquartered companies with revenues of $50 million CA or greater.  Arbor Memorial Inc. received their first recognition by the program in 2018, and is currently a Platinum Club member, having maintained their Best Managed status for seven consecutive years or more.   

Controversy

In 2017 and 2018, CBC’s Marketplace and The Toronto Star conducted two undercover investigations, looking into concerns about sales practices at six Arbor Memorial locations in Ontario. While the Bereavement Authority of Ontario (BAO), which regulates the province's funeral industry, deemed that no laws had been broken, Arbor Memorial stated it has adopted industry-wide changes and enhanced its training programs.

Current Operations

Arbor Memorial Inc. provides various services related to end-of-life events.

Practical and legal matters following a death

Across Canada, Arbor’s locations and pertinent members of their staff are licensed by the province in which they practice to care for the deceased for matters of transportation, cremation, burial, embalming and the preparation of the body, as well as the completion of related legal documents and administrative tasks. Arbor funeral professionals guide the consumer through the range of personal, practical and financial decisions that are required at the time of death, or when planning in advance.

Funerals

In adherence to religious tenets, cultural norms, or the personal wishes of an individual, each funeral, or the less formal ‘celebration of life’, is designed by Arbor’s arrangement professionals to create an individualized tribute. Arbor Memorial also offers proprietary ‘Time to Remember’ events built around a theme that represents the life of the departed. Ceremonies, whether simply or extensively planned, may take place at the funeral home, graveside, place of worship or an alternative venue, before or after the interment, or on the same-day.

Arbor Funeral Homes are also engaged in the selling of end-of-life products and services. Cremation urns, burial caskets, keepsakes, stationery, flowers, cremation jewelry, DNA preservation, video live-streaming, catering and receptions etc. are made available.

Bereaved families are provided access to grief counselling through their local Arbor funeral home.

Traditional Burials

Arbor Memorial provides varied burial options at its cemeteries including in-ground burial lots marked by upright monuments or flush to the ground markers, and mausoleum crypt spaces which are generally memorialized by a plaque. Ground burials and mausoleum crypts are both designed to permanently house a casket within a vault. Families can choose to be interred together with companion burial lot spaces, or above-ground within a private estate structure.

Families are assured the lasting upkeep of their resting place. Generational maintenance of a cemetery is reinforced by the legally required contributions to a Care and Maintenance Fund or Account by all owners and operators of licensed cemeteries. All cemeteries must be licensed, as per provincial law.

Cremation

At Arbor cemeteries, cremated remains can be buried in-ground, or interred in outdoor columbarium niches or indoor glass-front niches which display the urn and personal memorabilia. Many Arbor cemeteries offer naturalized areas or woodland pathways as an alternative to the formal cemetery landscape, where those choosing the cremation option can be memorialized with an engraved natural rock, a granite bench or pedestal, or in a private estate structure designed for multiple urns.

Of note, while burial had long been considered the tradition in Canada, trends have shown an increasing percentage of families choosing cremation.  According to the Cremation Association of North America, the annual cremation growth rate in Canada reached 75.3%, up from 59.0% and 74.4% in 2021, respectively. The annual growth rate is the difference between the yearly percentages of deaths cremated that are averaged over a five-year period.

Estate Planning Educators

Through public seminars, private consultations and information resources, Arbor Memorial provides families insight on the importance of estate planning, including making a Will and completing funeral plans in advance. With the cost of death increasing, and the current Canada Pension Plan (CPP) death benefit and Quebéc Pension Plan (QPP) death benefit providing insufficient funds for most families, Arbor promotes preparedness strategies to consumers: future services can be pre-selected and paid for at today’s price.

A Changing Demographic

The population of Canada has steadily risen since Arbor’s founding, and as it has done so, the nation’s demographic landscape has evolved with an increase in immigration from around the world. 2002 set a new record for newcomers coming to Canada in a single year. In answer to changing needs, the ceremonial and memorialization options at Arbor Memorial locations have expanded over the decades to serve a widening array of faith practices, death rituals and personal preferences from a broad base of cultures. Arbor cemeteries offer dedicated garden areas reserved to honour those of specific heritages, and at many locations, Arbor staff can serve local families in their native language.

Legacy Council

In 2023, the company announced the formation of the Arbor Memorial Legacy Council, a group of experts from a variety of disciplines engaged in exploring Canadians’ diverse and changing perceptions surrounding death, dying and the concept of leaving a legacy.

Company Structure

Arbor Memorial Inc.’s core centres of excellence (departments) operate from the home office in Toronto, ON. Functions and services at this location include Cemetery Operations, Construction and Development, Finance, Funeral Service, Government Affairs, Human Resources, Information Technology, Marketing and Communications, Procurement, Project Management Office, Sales & Administration.

In 2010, founder Daniel J. (Dan) Scanlan was named Chairman Emeritus of Arbor, and David Scanlan was appointed Chairman of the Board. Dan Scanlan passed away on April 26, 2014.

Currently, Arbor Memorial is managed by the children of Daniel J. Scanlan. David Scanlan is Chairman, President and CEO; Paul Scanlan is the Senior Vice-President, Business Development; and Michael Scanlan is the Senior Vice-President, Operations & Marketing.