The passage of 11 weeks has transformed their private grief and anguish into public anger.And they're taking it to the streets.
Representatives of 500 Catholic families threatened yesterday to march Monday in front of Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte's offices on Sherbrooke St. W. because they cannot bury their recently deceased in Notre Dame des Neiges cemetery.
Since management at the Roman Catholic burial ground locked out 129 unionized gravediggers and maintenance workers on May 16, the dead have been stored in an on-site freezer at the cemetery, on the western flank of Mount Royal.
Unless the labour conflict ends quickly, "we will mobilize starting Monday," Debora De Thomasis pledged to reporters outside the 138-hectare cemetery, now overgrown and neglected.
She pinpointed the chancery office of the Catholic archdiocese of Montreal as the initial protest target. "The families need to be heard," she said.
De Thomasis is president of a pressure group that's also behind a class-action lawsuit against the cemetery, Canada's largest.
The suit claims a total of "between $300,000 and $400,000" in real, moral and punitive damages for each day the dispute drags on, and has been filed on behalf of 500 families totalling about 3,000 people, lawyer Benot Gamache said.
The suit is expected to take years to wind its way through the courts.
De Thomasis pleaded for cemetery administrators to immediately lift the lockout - "to show good faith" and permit the dead to be laid permanently to rest - while conciliation in the thorny dispute runs its course.
Talks in the dispute continued yesterday under the supervision of conciliator Denis Giasson.
No signs of progress emerged.
"We've been talking a lot, but nothing is settled," union president Daniel Maillet said last night.
"The attitude is good" on both sides of the table, he noted, but added: "We're far from resolving this."
Guy Dufort, a lawyer who speaks for cemetery management at the bargaining table and to the media, said he "will not comment on progress or lack thereof until the conciliation process is over."
"My client is putting all its efforts toward finding a solution," he added.
A number of issues are at stake in the dispute, ranging from pensions to hours of work.
The families of the deceased "have been left in the dark," De Thomasis complained. "We have no clue as to where they're at and where they're going."
Turcotte has repeatedly refused to intervene in the dispute.
"He's washing his hands of his responsibilities," De Thomasis said.
Turcotte issued a statement an hour before De Thomasis's 1 p.m. news conference yesterday.
"With all my heart, I desire the quick resolution of this conflict," the statement read. "I remain informed and will closely follow the situation."
The cardinal's words left De Thomasis unconsoled.
"I am very disappointed," she responded. "He is our spiritual leader, as a Catholic. ... He has to be there to support us, support the families. He has to be involved.
"My grandmother is in there, waiting, since May 16, the day of the lockout.
"That's a very sad situation. She's been your mother for all your life, and all you know is she's in a fridge right now.
"It's just awful."
The cemetery, founded in 1854, is operated by the Fabrique de la Paroisse Notre Dame de Montral.
The Fabrique is an arm of the Catholic order of Sulpician priests, which bought all of Montreal Island in 1663.
The well-connected Sulpicians remain powerful - and low-profile - owners of swaths of Montreal real estate.
Under provincial law, Turcotte has authority to take actions "to ensure the maintenance of decency and good order" in Catholic cemeteries across his domain as bishop, centred on Montreal Island and Laval.
An estimated 500 bodies are being stored in a large cemetery vault, in their coffins and on shelves, at minus 8C.
Although a freezer trailer has been brought to the site and is parked adjacent to the vault, it does not contain any bodies.
"It is true that the law confers a certain number of powers to the bishop," Turcotte acknowledged.
"However, the cemetery remains under the administration and management of the Fabrique, whose property it is.
"I have been asked to intervene and I cannot do so."
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