Video description :
Description: A woman sits at a desk in a bright, clean office. She has meduim-length blond hair and glasses. She’s wearing a headset and faces a computer screen. She speaks into the headset microphone and introduces herself.
Christina: Hi, may I please speak with Darlene? Oh, hi Darlene. My name is Christina and I'm calling from Estate At Ease.
Description: Another voice starts speaking before the camera view cuts to a new scene.
Andrea: The way that they treated me on the phone was with lots of compassion. They were very, very kind.
Description: Andrea appears on-screen. She is in a city park and faces the camera as she begins to tell her story. She has long brown hair, and she’s wearing a pink blouse and a pearl necklace and earrings. It’s summertime, and the leaves on the trees are moving gently in the breeze.
My mom passed away last July and I was the executor of her will. The role of the executor is that you have to take care of the person's last wishes, arrange their funeral and arrange for all of their debts and assets to be taken care of.
Description: The video moves to focus on Cheryl, who is also sitting outside in front of lots of greenery. She’s wearing a purple top, silver necklace and has medium-length blond hair.
Cheryl: When my mom passed away in 2009[BJ3] , and I was dealing with the funeral home, they provided me with a brochure for Estate At Ease.
Description: The video moves to focus on Larry, who is sitting in a city park, facing the camera. He’s wearing a white shirt and a black jacket, and has short, grey hair. In the background, people are walking along the path.
Larry: Estate at Ease does not offer any expertise with legal, accounting or even paralegal, but what we do do is offer anything else administrative, as it relates to an estate.
Description: The video moves back to Andrea, sitting in a city park.
Andrea: In my mom's case, she had actually come from Germany,
Description: A black and white photo of Andrea’s mother when she was young appears on the screen. She’s smiling and has chin-length dark hair and is wearing a jacket.
Andrea: stayed in the United States for a number of years and then moved to Canada.
Description: A black and white photo appears of Andrea as a little girl, seated beside her mother, who has her arm around her. Andrea’s mother has shoulder-length hair and she’s wearing a patterned blouse. Andrea has short hair with bangs and is wearing a dress with tights. She’s making a photo-taking gesture with her hands as she smiles at the camera.
Andrea: She actually had three countries that I had to deal with. It was a lot of work.
Description: The video switches back to Cheryl, seated outside with the greenery behind her.
Cheryl: And the thought of having to go through the government websites,
Description: The camera moves to show Cheryl seated on an outdoor lounge chair with her daughter, a young adult. Her daughter has long blond hair wears a silver necklace like Cheryl’s. They’re looking through a photo album together. The camera view moves to look over Cheryl’s shoulder at the photo album. It’s opened to two pages titled “Grandma and Grandpa” and “love of my life” on the other. There are several photos of Cheryl’s parents taken at different times in their lives. Cheryl turns the page and the camera briefly shows pages with the titles “perfect” and “my son” which contain photos of more family members.
Cheryl: the OAS, CPP, banking, trying to navigate through all the websites, get the right form, fill it all out. I saw days of work ahead of me.
Description: The camera view then moves back to Andrea in the park.
Andrea: Having Estate at Ease do it saved me I think hundreds of hours.
Description: A colour photo appears of Andrea as a newborn baby in her young mother’s arms. Her mother smiles and looks at the camera, while Andrea yawns. Another colour photo appears with Andrea on her wedding day with her mother beside her. Andrea is wearing a white strapless wedding gown and veil and holding a bouquet of white flowers. Her mother is smiling and seated beside her.
Andrea: I would have had to research Germany, the United States and Canada, and how to notify everyone in all of those countries, and I can't even imagine how much time that would have taken me.
Description: The camera view moves back to Larry in the city park. As he begins speaking, the camera shifts to a view of him seated at his desk in his office. His computer is behind him, and he’s organizing papers into a folder. He closes the folder and then faces his computer.
Larry: All interviews are completed entirely over the phone. We actually never meet face to face with the clients. What we do is we walk them through a comprehensive process, collecting all of the relevant information specific to that estate.
Description: The camera moves to show a view of Larry approaching a shelf with small storage compartments containing envelopes. The compartments have labels such as “citizenship’, ‘firearms’, and ‘photo card’. Larry pulls an envelope from one of the compartments. The label shows it’s addressed to Citizenship Canada, Case Processing Centre with an address in Sydney, NS.
Larry: We get busy and we complete all of the documents and letters completely. We make all the relevant phone calls and follow up and we prepare package to mail out to the family.
Description: The video shifts back to Cheryl seated outside.
Cheryl: Literally every form that you need shows up at your house, all completely pre-filled little sticky notes with where you have to put the date and your signature, postage paid envelopes,
Description: The video shifts to a view of Cheryl seated outside with her daughter, looking through the photo album.
Cheryl: and literally in 10 minutes, you can get all of the documentation done in the mail and you get a copy for yourself for your own records as well. It was just amazing.
Description: The video shifts back to Larry in the park.
Larry: Big part of our program also includes the identity theft protection of the deceased, very relevant in today's society. We put death alerts on the deceased name, through TransUnion and Equifax. The whole process is designed around simplicity for the customer and efficiency for the customer.
Description: The video shifts back to Cheryl seated outside by herself.
Cheryl: I used Estate at Ease again in 2017 when my father passed away, had exactly the same experience, just absolutely second to none.
Description: The video shifts back to Andrea in the park.
Andrea: I would highly recommend Estate at Ease. It was a great service. They were very compassionate, very thorough.
Description: A coloured photo appears on screen of Andrea’s mother. She’s centred in the middle, smiling at the camera. Andrea is the right and her daughter is on the left. They are each kissing one of Andrea’s mother’s cheeks.
Andrea: It provided a lot of peace of mind at a very difficult time. It was a challenging time for me and my family and very, very helpful.
The screen fades to white. The Canada Life logo and legal line appears: Canada Life and design are trademarks of The Canada Life Assurance Company.
