The Best Cemeteries in the GTA (2026): 21 Compared and Tiered

Last updated: August 9, 2026

What are the best cemeteries in the GTA? We compared 21 cemeteries on published prices, public registers and measured data. Seven form our top tier, listed alphabetically:

• Assumption Catholic Cemetery, Mississauga
• Elgin Mills Cemetery, Richmond Hill
• Glen Oaks Funeral Home & Cemetery, Oakville
• Meadowvale Cemetery, Brampton
• Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto
• Thornton Cemetery, Oshawa
• York Cemetery, Toronto

Meadowvale finished first under 33 of the 43 sensitivity runs we tested. Four others finished first under at least one. That is why we publish tiers rather than a single winner.

The 21 come from three large GTA operators. They are all ten Mount Pleasant Group cemeteries, the six Catholic Cemeteries locations in the GTA, and the five Arbor Memorial sites with complete published interment price lists at our pull date. Arbor and others operate more GTA area cemeteries, including Highland Memory Gardens, Glenview, Highland Hills, Mount Lawn, Resthaven and Burlington Memorial Gardens. We left those out because complete published pricing was not available to compare, not on merit.

Every scored input is a published number you can check yourself: a price list, a government register, a transit schedule, or a dated Google rating. Choosing the categories and their weights was our call, and we publish those choices in full below. Haven Casket has supplied and installed monuments across the GTA since 2011, including work at each of the 21 cemeteries compared here. We used that experience to know what to look up, not to award points.

How we scored 21 cemeteries

Each cemetery earned up to 70 points across six categories. Price counts double because plot prices vary more than anything else, by a factor of ten across the GTA, and it is the first question families ask us.

Two honest notes before the results. First, scores this close together can reorder when you change the weights, so we group cemeteries into tiers instead of pretending the difference between 45.1 and 45.0 means something. Within each tier, cemeteries are listed alphabetically. Second, Haven sells and installs monuments at these cemeteries. That is a business interest, and we explain exactly how we kept it out of the scoring in the fairness section near the end.

The exact rules, so anyone can recompute any score:

• Price: 20 x (ln 50,000 minus ln P) / (ln 50,000 minus ln 2,500), where P is the published lot price plus any required cemetery installation fee. $2,500 scores 20; $50,000 scores 0.
• Transit: 6 points for a stop within 400 metres of the gate with midday service every 15 minutes or better; 5 for within 400 metres up to hourly; 4 for within 800 metres every 15 minutes; 3 for within 400 metres peak only, or within 800 metres up to hourly; 2 for within 800 metres peak only; 0 with no stop inside 800 metres.
• Hours: 4 points for exact published times, 3 for a published range, 2 where hours are posted only at the cemetery office.
• Heritage: register status up to 4 (national site 4, provincial designation 3, municipal listing 2), documented age up to 2 (pre 1900 scores 2, pre 1950 scores 1), Find a Grave famous memorials up to 2 (three or more scores 2, one or two scores 1), any war graves 1. The sum out of 9 rescales to 10.
• Options: interment types sold on the current price list, out of six, times 10/6.
• Satisfaction: adjusted rating = (reviews x stars + 96 x 4.10) / (reviews + 96), where 96 is the upper median review count and 4.10 the average rating of the 18 Google listings categorized as cemeteries. The adjusted value maps 3.0 to 5.0 stars onto 0 to 10.
• One place convenience: 6 for an active funeral home licence at the site plus 4 for a crematorium licence, as recorded August 5, 2026.

The full scorecard later in this article shows every component for every cemetery.

Tier A: the seven best cemeteries in the GTA

Assumption Catholic Cemetery, Mississauga (46.9 points)

The highest baseline score among the six Catholic cemeteries. Entry monument lots start at $7,045. A licensed funeral home and crematorium operate on site, and MiWay route 51 stops about 49 metres from the gate. Assumption also holds a spot on Mississauga’s heritage register. For Catholic families in Peel it is the complete package: mass, cremation or burial, and monument all arranged in one place on Tomken Road.

Elgin Mills Cemetery, Richmond Hill (45.2 points)

Mount Pleasant Group’s full service site in York Region. Funeral centre and crematorium operate on site, with entry monument lots from $8,750. It offers one of the widest ranges of burial options of the 21 compared, including the Mausoleum of the Heavens. A designated heritage building stands on the grounds. Transit is the weak spot: YRT route 80 runs about every 50 minutes midday.

Glen Oaks Funeral Home & Cemetery, Oakville (44.7 points)

The largest cemetery in our comparison at 226 acres, and the strongest baseline score west of Mississauga. Funeral home and crematorium on site, monument lots from $8,595, and Oakville Transit stops within 400 metres. The Henry and Mary Post Farmhouse, a designated heritage property, stands on Arbor’s land here. Maple Leafs legend Johnny Bower rests on the grounds. Note that Arbor requires its own crew to install monuments and bills $880 for it; we counted that fee in the price score.

Meadowvale Cemetery, Brampton (48.3 points)

The highest baseline score of the 21, and first place under 33 of the 43 sensitivity runs we tested. Monument lots start at $5,862.50, with a funeral centre and crematorium on site and Brampton Transit at the gate. It also has one of only two published natural burial sections among the 21, set beside a protected wildlife area. Meadowvale also has a dedicated Veterans Section and a Korean War Veterans Memorial. If we had to name one all round winner, this is it.

Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Toronto (45.1 points)

The only National Historic Site of Canada in this comparison, open since 1876, with 97 documented notable interments and 232 Commonwealth war graves. It scored a perfect 10 on heritage and the highest count weighted satisfaction score in our comparison, 4.6 stars across 227 reviews. It is also the most expensive ground of the 21 compared: entry monument lots start at $46,593. Mount Pleasant is where heritage and price pull hardest in opposite directions, and why no single ranking number can be honest about this cemetery.

Thornton Cemetery, Oshawa (47.6 points)

The value leader among full service sites. Monument lots from $4,392.50 are the second lowest of the 21 compared, with a funeral centre and crematorium on site. Durham Region Transit stops within 350 metres. The grounds are modern, opened in 1984, so heritage points are thin. For a Durham family who wants everything handled in one place at the lowest full service price, Thornton is the answer.

York Cemetery, Toronto (45.0 points)

Top marks on access: North York Centre subway station is a short walk from the gate, and the site scored a perfect 10 on location. A licensed funeral centre operates on site, and the heritage Michael Shepard House, designated under the Ontario Heritage Act, stands on the grounds. Monument lots from $13,149 are mid range for Toronto. It is the only cemetery of the 21 within a short walk of a subway station.

Tier B: strong choices, one trade off each

Eight cemeteries scored between 37.0 and 40.6. Each is a sound choice with one clear compromise. Alphabetically:

• Beechwood Cemetery, Vaughan (37.9): excellent transit at the gate and wide burial options including four mausolea, but no funeral home or crematorium on site.
• Brampton Funeral Home & Cemetery (39.0): low lot prices even after Arbor’s required $880 installation fee, funeral home on site, frequent transit. No crematorium licence, so cremation happens elsewhere.
• Duffin Meadows Cemetery, Pickering (38.0): good prices, a dedicated Chinese section, a Veterans Section, and one of the two published natural burial sections. No funeral home or crematorium on site until at least 2028, when Mount Pleasant Group plans to open a funeral centre there.
• Glendale Funeral Home & Cemetery, Etobicoke (40.4): full funeral home and crematorium on site, with frequent TTC service near the gate. Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender Turk Broda rests here. Toronto lot prices and Arbor’s required installation fee hold the score down.
• Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery, Thornhill (40.2): funeral home on site, Viva Blue rapid transit on Yonge Street at the gate, and the resting place of Marshall McLuhan and three Archbishops of Toronto. No crematorium.
• Pine Hills Cemetery, Scarborough (37.0): funeral centre on site, good transit, and 31 Commonwealth war graves. Its 1928 founding date appears only in the operator’s own materials, so it earns no age credit under our rules. Its indoor mausoleum is sold out, and Toronto pricing applies.
• Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery, Woodbridge (40.6): funeral home on site and one of the best satisfaction ratings among Catholic sites, 4.5 stars. No transit stop serves the Highway 27 frontage; plan to drive.
• Resurrection Catholic Cemetery, Whitby (38.8): the lowest monument lot price of the 21 compared, at $4,115. No funeral home or crematorium on site, and satisfaction reviews are modest. If price decides, start here.

Tier C: know what you are choosing

Four cemeteries scored 32.5 or below. None of them is a bad place to be buried, but each carries either the GTA’s steepest prices or the fewest services.

• Christ the King Catholic Cemetery, Markham (32.5): good lot prices from $5,410, but the nearest year round transit stop is over two kilometres away. The site opened in 2004 and has no licensed funeral home or crematorium on site.
• Mount Hope Catholic Cemetery, Toronto (25.1): consecrated 1898, more than 76,000 interments, and about 150 Commonwealth war graves (the commission’s own tallies list 147 and 153). King Clancy rests here. It is close to capacity, and its remaining lots start at $33,955. The pedestrian gate closes at 4:20 pm, the earliest of all 21.
• Pine Ridge Memorial Gardens, Ajax (25.1): waterfalls and ponds on the grounds, but no funeral home or crematorium licence, no transit stop within 800 metres, and lot prices that run higher than every other Durham cemetery we compared.
• Prospect Cemetery, Toronto (31.5): a historic cemetery opened in 1890 on St. Clair West with about 650 Commonwealth war graves, the most of the 21 compared. The streetcar stops at the gate. Burial space is limited and lots start around $37,340.

Two cemeteries we could not rank

Toronto Necropolis is one of the city’s oldest cemeteries, opened around 1850 in Cabbagetown. Its 1872 chapel is by architect Henry Langley, and the grounds sit inside a heritage conservation district. It would have placed second on heritage out of all 21. We could not rank it overall because casket burial there is sold out; cremation plots remain available.

Bayview Cemetery & Crematorium in Burlington holds a Grade A spot on Burlington’s heritage register. Its 1926 mausoleum was reportedly the first of its kind in Canada. Arbor does not publish an adult casket burial price or a monument fee schedule for Bayview, so there was nothing to score. Ask the cemetery directly and get every number in writing.

Category winners

Lowest published monument lot price

1. Resurrection Catholic, Whitby: $4,115
2. Thornton, Oshawa: $4,392.50
3. Brampton Funeral Home & Cemetery: $5,705 ($4,825 lot plus Arbor’s required $880 installation)

Heritage

1. Mount Pleasant, Toronto: National Historic Site, 1876, 232 war graves
2. Toronto Necropolis: circa 1850, heritage district, 1872 Langley chapel
3. York Cemetery, Toronto: designated Shepard House on the grounds, 1948

Family satisfaction (Google, count weighted, August 5, 2026)

1. Mount Pleasant: 4.6 stars, 227 reviews
2. York Cemetery: 4.5 stars, 131 reviews
3. Queen of Heaven: 4.5 stars, 100 reviews, with Toronto Necropolis a whisker behind at 4.5 stars and 88 reviews

Best transit at the gate

Five cemeteries earned a perfect transit score, each with a frequent stop within 400 metres of the gate: Meadowvale (Brampton Transit), York Cemetery (the subway at North York Centre), Beechwood (YRT on Jane Street), Prospect (the 512 St. Clair streetcar) and Brampton Funeral Home & Cemetery (Brampton Transit).

Everything in one place

Seven cemeteries hold both an active funeral establishment licence and an active crematorium licence at the site. A family can arrange the visitation, service, cremation and burial through one location: Mount Pleasant, Elgin Mills, Meadowvale, Thornton, Assumption, Glendale and Glen Oaks. We verified every licence in the Bereavement Authority of Ontario public register. Marketing names can mislead here. Two GTA cemeteries carry the word Crematorium in their business name while their crematorium licences show as voluntarily terminated in the register. Two sites branded as Cremation Centres hold no crematorium licence at all. The register, not the sign, tells you what each site is licensed to do. Licence status here is as recorded August 5, 2026; confirm with the register before you rely on it.

Widest choice of burial types

Six cemeteries currently sell five different interment types: casket graves, cremation graves, niches, scattering, and either a mausoleum or a natural burial section. They are: Meadowvale, Elgin Mills, Mount Pleasant, Duffin Meadows, Beechwood and Prospect. Only Meadowvale and Duffin Meadows publish a dedicated natural burial section, the only two among all 21.

The operator rulebook: what the three companies do differently

The 21 cemeteries compared here belong to three operators, and the rules that matter most are written at the operator level. This is the part families never see until after they have bought a plot.

The grave versus lot trap

At Mount Pleasant Group cemeteries, a grave permits a flat marker only. A lot permits an upright monument. That exact distinction is printed on all ten of their price lists. A family that buys a grave expecting to place an upright headstone later cannot, at any price. If a monument matters to you, confirm in writing that you are buying a monument lot before you sign, at any operator.

Who may install your monument

All three operators accept monuments from any licensed supplier, so you are never required to buy the stone from the cemetery. Mount Pleasant Group says so plainly and points families to outside monument builders. The difference is installation. At Mount Pleasant Group and Catholic Cemeteries, your monument supplier installs the monument. At Arbor cemeteries, the by-law reserves installation of any monument under 88 inches wide to Arbor itself. Arbor’s price lists bill $880 for it, up to a 60 inch base. In our own work at Arbor cemeteries, the supplier still prepares and assembles the monument. The $880 is an extra cemetery charge, not a replacement for the supplier’s work. We counted it in Arbor’s price scores for exactly that reason.

Foundation fees: the answer depends on your monument’s size

Every upright monument needs a concrete foundation, built by the cemetery at your cost. The three operators price it in three different ways. The Catholic column below shows its January 2025 schedule, the last complete one it published:

Mount Pleasant Group charges $277 per square foot with a $715 minimum. Catholic Cemeteries’ last complete schedule, from January 2025, charged flat tiers by area; its current 2026 lists state only a starting price of $880, so ask for the current figure for your base size. Arbor charges $1,290 per lot regardless of base size. On current published fees, Mount Pleasant Group costs less than Arbor for small bases and more above roughly 670 square inches. Between the two operators with current schedules, neither wins at every size. That is why foundations stay out of the scoring and sit in this table instead.

Winter rules

Mount Pleasant Group does not accept flat marker deliveries from December 15 to April 1. Arbor publishes no fixed winter dates, but installs only when ground conditions allow and bars heavy loads in spring when roads are soft. Catholic Cemeteries pours foundations seasonally as conditions permit. After a late fall or winter burial, the monument usually follows in spring. Mount Pleasant Group’s flat marker blackout has fixed dates; upright monuments and Arbor installations depend on ground conditions. Plan the unveiling or dedication around that.

Visiting hours

Mount Pleasant Group publishes exact gate hours: 8 am to 8 pm from April through October, 8 am to 5:30 pm from November through March. Catholic Cemeteries’ by-law sets 8 am to dusk. Arbor posts hours at each cemetery office rather than publishing them, so call before a long drive. One outlier worth knowing: Mount Hope’s pedestrian gate closes at 4:20 pm.

Who actually maintains the grave

Every operator collects a care and maintenance contribution when a monument is installed. The usual amounts are $200 for a monument up to four feet and $400 above that. Families often assume this money maintains their stone. It does not. The fund maintains the grounds: grass, roads, trees, fences. Mount Pleasant Group’s by-law lists re-levelling and seeding of graves as covered, and it commits to stabilizing unsafe monuments. Cleaning a memorial is a chargeable extra. Reconstruction of a damaged monument is the family’s responsibility at all three operators. All three by-laws also state, in nearly identical words, that minor scraping of the monument base from grass cutting counts as normal wear. In short: the cemetery keeps the lawn; the stone is yours. Haven offers monument cleaning and restoration when a family wants an older stone brought back.

The full scorecard

Every component score for every cemetery, so nothing hides inside the totals. P is price out of 20. L is location, H heritage, O options, S satisfaction and C one place convenience, each out of 10. An asterisk marks the three neutral satisfaction scores explained in the fairness section. The two unranked cemeteries publish no monument lot price, so they have no P score and no total.

Prices at a glance

Entry level published prices for an upright monument lot, lowest first. Arbor figures include the $880 installation fee its by-law makes unavoidable. All prices before HST, as published to August 7, 2026. Cemetery pricing changes often, so treat these as a starting point and get current numbers in writing.

Notice what the table shows about Toronto. Toronto’s least expensive monument lot is $13,035, at Glendale with the installation fee. That is more than three times the least expensive lot in Durham, $4,115 at Resurrection. That is the price of Toronto land, not a difference in quality. Many families choose a cemetery 20 to 30 minutes outside the city and put the difference toward the monument itself. Our GTA cemetery plot price guide has the full price matrix for every plot type, including flat marker graves and cremation options.

Best by region

• Toronto: Mount Pleasant and York Cemetery, effectively tied. Choose Mount Pleasant for heritage, York for access and price.
• York Region: Elgin Mills holds the region’s top baseline score. Beechwood costs less if on site services matter less.
• Peel: Meadowvale, the top baseline score of the 21. Assumption for Catholic families.
• Durham: Thornton for full service, Resurrection for the lowest price of the 21.
• Halton: Glen Oaks, the only Tier A site west of Mississauga.

How we kept this fair

Haven Casket is a monument retailer. We sell and install headstones and monuments at every cemetery on this page. That means a business relationship with the operators being compared, and a financial interest in monument rules. Here is what we did about that.

• Every scored point comes from a published document, public register, official schedule or dated Google rating. Our opinions of any cemetery’s grounds, staff or service are not scored anywhere.
• We removed a planned category on how each operator treats outside monument suppliers, because we are one. Those rules are reported above as facts instead.
• Where Arbor charges families an $880 installation fee that other operators do not, we counted it. We also state plainly that Arbor’s flat foundation fee is the cheapest option for larger monuments.
• Google lists three Arbor sites as funeral homes rather than cemeteries, so their reviews measure the funeral home experience. Rather than score reviews of a different thing, those three take the field average in the satisfaction category. The field average itself is computed only from the 18 listings Google categorizes as cemeteries, so these three listings do not influence it. Their actual listings as of August 5, 2026: Glendale 4.5 stars from 282 reviews, Glen Oaks 4.3 from 354, Brampton 4.6 from 318.
• We stress tested the ranking 43 ways: raising and lowering each category’s weight, nudging every score up and down, and dropping each category outright. Orderings that failed any test are not asserted anywhere in this article. Meadowvale finished first in 33 of the 43 runs; Thornton, Mount Pleasant, Assumption and York each won at least one.
• Tiers are bands on the baseline score, and the edges are soft. Under the heaviest price weighting we tested, Resurrection climbs as high as second.
• Prices are as published to August 7, 2026. Cemetery price lists change during the year, and Arbor updates per location, so always confirm current figures with the cemetery.

Appendix: the raw inputs

These are the values the formulas run on, so any score can be rebuilt from this page alone. Scoring stop is the qualifying transit stop that produced the transit score; where a strictly closer stop exists with less service, the better scoring stop is shown. Heritage shows the four sub scores in order: register, age, famous memorials, war graves. Licences are the active classes at the site in the BAO public register. Refs point to the numbered source list under the table. The full citation record behind every cell, including BAO licence numbers, register record numbers, transit stop identifiers and retrieval dates, is published alongside this article.

Sources:

1. Mount Pleasant Group price lists, all ten cemeteries, effective July 1, 2026: mountpleasantgroup.com/what-we-offer/pricing/price-lists
2. Catholic Cemeteries price lists, effective June 12, 2026 (Holy Cross June 19, 2026): catholic-cemeteries.ca/about-us/price-list-download
3. Arbor Memorial cemetery price lists at sharingmemoriesportal.arbormemorial.ca, per site: Pine Ridge effective March 23, Bayview March 28, Glendale June 29, Brampton July 30, Glen Oaks August 4, 2026
4. Mount Pleasant Group Cemetery By-laws, effective May 1, 2024 (gate hours, marker and monument rules): mountpleasantgroup.com
5. Catholic Cemeteries Operating By-Laws, revised January 2022, reprinted October 2024 (visiting hours, monument rules): catholic-cemeteries.ca
6. Arbor Memorial Ontario Cemetery By-Laws, effective November 2017, revised February 2019 (hours posted at each office, monument rules): arbormemorial.ca
7. Transit schedule (GTFS) feeds from the TTC, York Region Transit, MiWay, Brampton Transit, Durham Region Transit, Oakville Transit, Burlington Transit and GO Transit, retrieved August 7, 2026; midday frequencies computed for the Wednesday, August 12, 2026 service day; gate locations from OpenStreetMap
8. Parks Canada, Directory of Federal Heritage Designations, Mount Pleasant Cemetery National Historic Site of Canada, record 1932 (designated 2000; opened 1876): pc.gc.ca
9. Ontario Heritage Act e-Register, Ontario Heritage Trust: Massey Mausoleum, record 2625; 200 Winchester Street in the Cabbagetown North heritage district, record 11264; Michael Shepard House, record 2379: heritagetrust.on.ca/oha
10. Town of Oakville designation by-law 2023-121, Henry and Mary Post Farmhouse, 3164 Ninth Line
11. City of Burlington Municipal Cultural Heritage Register: 740 Spring Gardens Road, Grade A, year built 1926
12. Municipal heritage registers: Mississauga (Assumption, 6933 Tomken Rd), Markham (Christ the King, 7770 Steeles Ave E), Vaughan (Queen of Heaven)
13. Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery records for Toronto (Mount Pleasant), Toronto (Mount Hope), Toronto Necropolis, Toronto (Prospect), Pine Hills, and Bayview (Burlington): cwgc.org, checked August 2026
14. Find a Grave famous memorial counts, per cemetery page: findagrave.com, checked August 2026
15. City of Toronto staff report (2013) recording Prospect Cemetery’s 1890 opening: toronto.ca/legdocs
16. Google Maps business listings, ratings, review counts and listing categories, retrieved August 5, 2026
17. Bereavement Authority of Ontario public register, licence classes, licence numbers and status, retrieved August 5, 2026: portal.thebao.ca/public-register
18. City of Richmond Hill, notice of designation under the Ontario Heritage Act, by-law 106-25, Peter Heise House, 1591 Elgin Mills Road East: richmondhill.ca

Questions families ask us

What is the cheapest cemetery in the GTA for a monument?

Of the 21 cemeteries we compared, Resurrection Catholic Cemetery in Whitby publishes the lowest entry monument lot at $4,115, followed by Thornton in Oshawa at $4,392.50. Both sit in Durham Region, where every cemetery we compared prices far below Toronto.

Which GTA cemetery is the most prestigious?

Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto is the only National Historic Site of Canada among the 21 compared, open since 1876, with more documented notable interments than any other site we compared, and 232 Commonwealth war graves, second only to Prospect’s roughly 650. It is also the most expensive of the 21 by a wide margin.

Do I have to buy my monument from the cemetery?

No. All three major operators accept monuments from any licensed supplier, and Mount Pleasant Group’s own materials say there is no obligation to buy from them. At Arbor cemeteries the monument itself can come from any supplier, but Arbor installs it and charges $880. Ontario’s Bereavement Authority consumer information explains your purchase rights. Ask any cemetery for its monument by-laws before you order a stone, and bring them to your monument supplier. Haven works with the rules at all 21 cemeteries on this page, and our monuments are designed and engraved in Markham.

Will the cemetery take care of the headstone?

No. The care and maintenance fund every cemetery collects maintains the grounds, not individual monuments. Cleaning, repair and restoration of a stone are the family’s responsibility at all three operators.

Can I have the funeral, cremation and burial at one place?

At seven GTA cemeteries, yes: Mount Pleasant, Elgin Mills, Meadowvale, Thornton, Assumption, Glendale and Glen Oaks all hold active funeral home and crematorium licences at the cemetery itself. We confirmed each licence in the Bereavement Authority of Ontario public register.

Is a more expensive cemetery better maintained?

Not necessarily. Higher plot prices in Toronto mostly reflect land value and scarcity. Mount Hope’s prices, for example, reflect a cemetery near capacity, not premium grounds. Care standards are set by each operator’s by-laws and apply across their cemeteries at every price level.

Haven Casket has supplied and installed monuments across the GTA since 2011, from a showroom in Markham. If you are choosing a cemetery and want to know what its rules mean for a future monument, ask us or visit the showroom. We will tell you what we know about working in each one.