Q&A: Edmonton death educator breaks taboos on end-of-life planning

March 2, 2025 Canuck

An Edmonton woman has made her career out of talking about death.

Gina Vliet, an Edmonton-based death educator and certified executor advisor, is dedicated to demystifying end-of-life topics. She offers education on funeral practices, memorialization, wills and estates, probate, and executorship.

During a Nerd Nite event in Edmonton last Thursday, Vliet did a presentation, titled “How to Dispose of a Body in Alberta: the Intersection of Organ, Tissue and Body Donation”. It addressed the importance of early planning to alleviate stress during grieving, as well as practical steps to ensure one’s wishes are known and honoured.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You call yourself a death educator. So what is that exactly?

It’s the title I made up for myself. I wanted to take all of the things that I really enjoyed learning about and, basically, educate people on all aspects of mortality — whether that’s funeral practices, memorialization, wills and estates, probate and executorship.

Why do you feel it’s so important for people to be educated about death?

I really believe that people need to be informed, so that they can make good decisions about their end-of-life planning. What I realized early on in my consulting in the death field was that most people aren’t ready to have those discussions, because they don’t know what they don’t know.

So backing up a little bit and giving them the education they need to make good decisions and know where the risks are and what they need to do. The one universal thing we all share is that we’re going to die. So our shared mortality, and acknowledging our mortality, actually allows us to have a better quality of life.

What sort of businesses do you run as a death educator?

I run an executor school. I teach estate owners and executors how to collaborate and work together and be proactive, so that the transition when someone dies is a lot smoother.

It’s important to have time and information to think about these things and plan for these things, instead of worrying about talking about it and making decisions when you have to and when you’re grieving. If we do it earlier, it becomes a lot easier.

Executors also have rights and they need to know what the risks are of taking on that role. People will do [the job] without having any idea what they’re getting themselves into.

How do you approach these darker topics in a lighthearted and fun way?

I use a lot of humour. I’m a bit reverent as to how I approach the world. It’s really important when you’re starting to talk about your mortality, if it’s something that you fear or if you’ve got a bit of a death phobia, that we start with the theoretical instead of just focusing on our own death.

Someone can approach this subject with their loved ones by talking about a celebrity death, and that allows people time to come to the understanding that we’re all mortal.

What were some things that really surprised you when you first got into this area?

I assumed that people were ready to have these conversations. What I learned very early on, in my one-on-one consults, was that people were not ready. And there was nowhere out there for people to learn about the basics of the funeral industry so that they can make good decisions, or what really happens with a will, or with probate.

There’s a lot of misinformation out there. We take a lot of our cues from American social media and television, and of course our systems are very different. So, demystifying and making it accessible to people, especially because grief doesn’t get our brains working the way it should.

Listen to the full interview:

Edmonton AM6:45A chat with a death educator about mortality

Gina Vliet is a death educator and certified executor advisor. She’s doing a talk titled “How to Dispose of a Body in Alberta: the intersection of organ, tissue and body donation,” at Nerd Nite Edmonton on Thursday. She joins us to talk about this and other mortality matters.

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