A months-long labour dispute at Montreal's Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery appears to be drawing to a close after a tentative deal was reached Thursday, but the news provides little comfort for families desperate to visit their loved ones.
Union members will vote on the deal on Wednesday, ruling out a temporary reopening of Montreal's largest cemetery in time for Father's Day on Sunday. The facility opened on an exceptional basis for Mother's Day last month and has been opened and closed on and off since January.
Union members told CTV News that there were talks through the night and into the early morning on Thursday.
Groundskeepers have been without a collective agreement since 2018, while office workers haven't had a contract since 2017, putting grieving families in the middle of the dispute. About 300 bodies waiting to be buried because of the job action are being stored at freezing temperatures in an on-site repository.
"All their disputes should be done inside. These are pressure tactics. I'm embarrassed to live in a province that allows something like this," said Maria Iacampo, whose parents are buried at the cemetery.
Her mother, Carolina, died of cancer in 2019 and was buried next to Maria's father, Pasquale, who died in the late 1970s.
"She knew where she was going and it was a comfort to her to say ok I'm going to go near daddy and that's it," Iacampo said.
Still grieving, she deplores the fact that she cannot visit her parents due to the strike.
The cemetery's office workers union has been on strike since September.
"When our workers voted for that strike on September 22, a lot of us were crying because we knew it was our last right and last resort," said Eric Dufault, president of the office workers' union.
An advisory on the cemetery's site said that "cremation and crypt burial services remain available by appointment for bereaved families."
Labour Minister Jean Boulet called the proposed agreement an "excellent development" in a post on Twitter on Thursday. "Congratulations to the parties!" he wrote.
Paul Caghassi, a spokesperson for the families who have loved ones buried at the cemetery, welcomed the new deal, but stopped short of calling it a victory for families.
"I know they are relieved now but they are going to be going through a new process now of grieving again," he said in an interview.
While the results of the vote won't be ready for Father's Day this year, families are hoping that the dispute will finally end so that they can grieve the right way.
With files from CTV News Montreal's Luca Caruso-Moro
