Auditors at the Department of Veterans Affairs are questioning millions of dollars spent on an old navy cemetery. The department billed taxpayers $4 million for graveyard upgrades like plots that were never sold and trails that were never used..“Up to date operational plans do not exist,” said an internal department report. “There is no plan in place.".The report examined spending at God’s Acre Cemetery at Esquimalt, B.C. dating from 1868. The cemetery had 2,500 graves on 2.7 acres and was virtually full, said a report..According to Blacklock's Reporter, God’s Acre cost taxpayers an average $123,000 a year including salary for a caretaker to cut the grass and shovel snow. However, beginning in 2015 managers opted to expand the graveyard for unknown reasons..“The department purchased a 0.65 acre piece of land adjacent to the cemetery to create a new Columbarium Garden with room for an additional 1,500 internment spaces,” wrote auditors. “Project work was completed during the 2018-19 fiscal year at a total cost of $2.5 million with $450,000 for land purchase and $1.8 million for the Columbarium Garden.”.“A second project to replace the existing garage building and to repave roads and trails was completed in 2019-2020 at a cost of $1.5 million,” said the report. “The upgraded facilities were supposed to allow for on-site staffing to facilitate increased burials at the cemetery.”.Auditors found no obvious reason for the multi-million dollar upgrade. There was no plan “that takes into consideration cemetery operations,” they wrote..“The Evaluation team could find no evidence formal policies have been developed to define who can be interred at God’s Acre, e.g. veterans versus family members; how many plots are obtained and reserved, e.g. presale of lots; or plot pricing,” said the report. “In addition no business processes are in place for the handling of funeral payments and the storing of cemetery information.”.God’s Acre is one of only two federally-owned veterans’ cemeteries in Canada. The other, Fort Massey in Halifax, dates from 1778 and has been full for years. “The cemetery is closed to new burials with the exception of spouses of buried veterans,” wrote auditors..New burials at Fort Massey were “rare occasions,” it said. Costs to operate the graveyard were $55,155 last year..The Commonwealth War Graves Commission maintains cemeteries for 132,355 Canadian combat dead, mainly overseas. The Department of Veterans Affairs pays to maintain gravestones for another 220,917 veterans buried in municipal and private cemeteries nationwide. “In Canada the Department of Veterans Affairs manages and cares for the graves of veterans who die outside of wartime and who qualify,” wrote auditors.
