Saskatoon’s city council voted to allow people to release cremated remains into the South Saskatchewan River during funerals.
It’s a measure directed towards Hindu and Sikh communities in the city. Dispersing ashes is an important funeral rite for both religions and the COVID-19 pandemic has prevented anyone from visiting India to distribute ashes in the Ganges or in the province of Punjab, depending on whether they are Hindu or Sikh, respectively.
“It’s been tough, (it) has been… emotionally not very good,” Leela Sharma said.
Sharma is the past president of the Hindu Society of Saskatchewan.
She told Global News the ceremony is a very important component of the funeral and grieving process, likening the Ganges River reaching the Indian Ocean to an individual soul reaching the ultimate destination after death.
Jaswant Singh, a representative of the Sikh Society of Saskatchewan, told Global News Sikhs hold similar beliefs, with the ashes being placed in moving water representing “going through the river into the ocean, and then you become part of the water.”
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Both said the inability to travel to India to release ashes there has arrested the grieving process for many people, prolonging a searing time.
Saskatoon’s bylaws didn’t expressly permit the practice but they also didn’t prohibit it.
The council’s unanimous vote on Monday officially permitted the funeral rite to take place, with conditions.
The vote binds city administrators to develop guidelines for the practice and posting them within several months.
Some of the recommended guidelines include requiring the scattering of ashes to take place between May 1 and Oct. 31, prohibiting funeral attendees from releasing ashes close to public activity areas and mandating that remains be completely pulverized.
The vote also compels the city to “continue respecting the possibility” of identifying a location and building a permanent site for scattering remains.
It specifies the location be a quiet and secluded site open to all religions but doesn’t say where or when it will be built.
Singh said Sikhs don’t erect memorials, so having a site provides a place to commemorate loved ones.
Sharma told Global News she’s strongly in favour of the site because it would allow many local family members to attend.
She and Singh both said having a permanent and dedicated location is important for new Canadians and their children to feel at home in their home country.
“For second, third, fourth, fifth generations to come, this is a very critical spot,” Singh told Global News.
“They will say, ‘I was born in Saskatoon, I need to have a place here where I… could say (my) final goodbye.’”
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