The funeral business is not the sexiest industry, but like a lot of mature enterprises, it can provide lively returns. Funeral industry sources predict that there will be 8.3 deaths per 1,000 people in Canada next year, which will rise by almost 20 per cent over the next 30 years. Most of the 19,500 funeral homes in America are small operations, passed down through families over the generations. But a few large companies, many of them publicly traded (including Wal-Mart and Amazon), control the business. Those are the firms that we studied in this analysis of the death industry. List of largest public companies in Canada by profit Jump to (February 2019) This is a list of the 75 largest public companies in Canada by profit as of 2012. Legend: Increase in rank Decrease in rank No change in rank Rank Exclusive rankings of Canada's most profitable companies". The Globe and Mail. June 28, 2013.