Winnipegger Pushes To Ban 3rd-party Obituary Sites

Kathryn Van Ameyde put a batch of thought into her father’s obituary.

“You’re trying to sum up someone’s full life successful like, 200, 250 words, in… an affectional time, and it’s hard,” she said.

A expert who died successful October 2025, Ken Van Ameyde was “exceptionally committed to his work,” and “an exacting but adjacent teacher.”

Kathryn worked to see anecdotes pinch a touch of humour, remembering his haphazard DIY projects, and his prime words for Winnipeg drivers.

But soon aft nan obituary went up connected Wojcik’s Funeral Home’s website, Van Ameyde’s aunt reached out.

“My aunt, who had proofread nan obituary for me, said, ‘This isn’t what you wrote,’” Van Ameyde said.

Her aunt had not seen nan obituary she’d written, but different posting for Ken connected echovita.com. Van Ameyde says nan posting contained errors and omitted nan anecdotes she’d cautiously prepared.

“It was a) factually incorrect, but b) they stripped it of all… nan characteristic of it,” she said, adding nan posting made her “livid.”

Van Ameyde reached retired to Echovita, demanding they region nan post, to which nan institution obliged.

“I besides reached retired to their web hosts and to Google arsenic well, trying to get it delisted from nan hunt results,” she said.

Echovita is an “archive of obituaries and nationalist decease notices,” according to nan website. It gathers accusation from nationalist obituaries connected ceremonial location websites, posting accusation for illustration family members and day of death.

The institution says their ngo is “to thief families stock for free nan news of a loved one’s passing and sphere their memory, without financial aliases technological barriers,” and that it follows each applicable laws regarding nationalist records, copyright, and privacy.

Each posting connected Echovita.com includes acquisition options, including lighting a virtual candle, planting trees, aliases sending flowers successful sanction of nan deceased. While family members are not notified erstwhile a posting is created, they tin beryllium notified if personification makes a acquisition successful their loved one’s name. The institution besides has a solidarity program, wherever family members tin interaction them and declare a information of nan sales.

Wojcik’s Funeral Home says it has received galore calls from families who person recovered their loved one’s Echovita posting, reasoning Wojcik’s has posted an inaccurate and incomplete obituary.

“They each initially deliberation nan aforesaid thing,” said Wojcik’s agency administrator Laval Palendat. “Like, ‘My sister conscionable recovered this obituary connected this tract and nan accusation is incorrect.’”

After explaining to families astir nan third-party site, nan ceremonial location lets them cognize really to petition nan station beryllium removed aliases corrected.

“I person benignant of a small template to nonstop them of what to do,” Palendat said, “…it’s thing I do now. It’s conscionable a process because of really galore calls we get.”

She doesn’t work together pinch really nan tract operates.

“If they’re retired to conscionable thief group dispersed nan connection of somebody’s loved 1 who has passed, that’s different. But this is for illustration a business to me, it seems,” she said.

Yuri Chumak is simply a Toronto-based intelligence spot lawyer pinch Dickinson Wright LLP. He says sites for illustration Echovita aren’t breaking nan rule by reposting accusation for illustration names of nan deceased’s family members and day of death.

“The truth of decease successful Canada, that’s nationalist information. That’s not copyrightable. But nan obituary matter is not public, and is copyrighted,” he said.

Chumak says it would beryllium up to a user to bring guardant a lawsuit against them to make a alteration successful that regard. In his opinion, it’s nan income constituent that is much apt to put a institution for illustration Echovita astatine risk.

“Where location is simply a spot of a ineligible consequence is leaving it ambiguous aliases saying conscionable capable to let nan visitant aliases nan scholar to scope a conclusion that nan family is benefiting, aliases whitethorn benefit, and past preying upon nan spread successful accusation to fundamentally return from nan visitor,” he said.

Van Ameyde believes nan acquisition options are misleading, arsenic families are not notified of their loved one’s Echovita posting erstwhile it goes up.

“We had quickly warned group that this was not morganatic obituary, and to alternatively spell done nan Wojcik’s Funeral Home one,” she said.

She contacted her MLA and MP, and done her MP Doug Eyolfsen, petitioned nan House of Commons to prohibition nan modification of obituaries, and prohibition income not explicitly mentioned successful nan original obituary.

“It’s… a morally bankrupt practice, what they’re doing correct now,” she said.

The petition is collecting signatures until Feb. 26.