Vancouver Information and Newspaper

MONTREAL – By all accounts, Haitian earthquake victims Georges and Mireille Anglade were polar opposites. He had a flamboyant personality while hers was quiet and unassuming.

At funeral services for the couple Saturday, both were remembered for their intellect, strength and dedication to helping others.

The Haitian-Canadian couple were killed in the quake that devastated the impoverished country Jan. 12, leaving over 150,000 dead and many more injured and homeless.

Hundreds of friends, family and colleagues bid goodbye to the husband and wife who spent much of their lives fighting for dignity and democracy in Haiti.

Two large photos of the couple were placed on either side of the altar at Montreal’s Notre Dame Basilica. One, in black-and-white, showed them in their youth, Georges with his arm draped around Mireille’s shoulders as she gazed shyly at the camera. In the other, they stood together, much older now, his dark blue suit offset with a red pocket square, she at his side in a white dress.

“Papa made us think big,” his daughter Dominique told the congregation, recalling her father’s encouragement when his children expressed and defended their opinions, something he taught them through his own actions.

Georges had been a political prisoner under the Duvalier regime, helped lead Haiti’s democracy movement, served as public works minister in the Aristide government, wrote several books, and was an adviser to current president Rene Preval.

Pascale, the couple’s second daughter, said their parents also taught them the importance of strong relationships.

“My parents had opposite personalities but made a perfect couple,” she said.

Mireille was an economist who worked with the United Nations in Haiti and was actively involved in women’s rights.

She was “the hyphen” who held the family together, Pascale said.

Colleagues also remembered Mireille as someone who united people – French and English, Haitians and Canadians.

“She was unique and unassuming,” said Quebec Court Justice Juanita Westmoreland-Traore, a close family friend.

“You would look at her and enjoy being in her presence. I called her effervescent.”

Claude Corbo, the rector of the Universite du Quebec a Montreal, said Georges’ death will resound in both Canada and Haiti.

“It was a major loss, especially for his home country,” he said. “The knowledge of Haiti he gained over the years in his scientific work would have been an important tool in the rebuilding of the country.”

Georges helped found the Montreal university in 1969, where he continued to teach geography between trips to Haiti.

Georges’ cousin Frantz Voltaire said the couple’s work and writings will live on to help rebuild the devastated country.

“They are people who made a mark,” he said.

The Anglade family is also mourning the loss of their cousin and uncle in the disaster, along with countless others.

“This tragedy took four people from us,” Dominique said. “But there were 150,000 people taken in the earthquake – 150,000 other tragedies.”

Former Liberal MP Serge Marcil was also laid to rest in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield, Que., on Saturday.

The church was packed with over 1200 mourners, including many his former political colleagues. Among them were federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, his predecessor Stephane Dion and former Quebec premier Daniel Johnson.

Marcil was briefly a provincial labour minister in Johnson’s cabinet in the 90s.

“The scope of the tragedy in Haiti is tenfold the scope of the pain and sadness we all feel when you know people who disappeared in those moments,” Johnson told the media before the ceremony.

“I’m trying, with my presence here, to lessen the pain his family is feeling.”

Journalist Daniel Grenier from the Journal Saint-Francois – one of the local papers – said the whole community came to pay homage to Marcil, the man he called “the region’s son.”

“He did a lot for Valleyfield since he went into politics,” he said.

“He was a great humanists, a positive man who was always ready with a smile and a kind word. He was a man of the people. It was practically a state funeral.”

Marcil’s body was recovered last week in the rubble of the Hotel Montana in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.

Two other victims of the earthquake in Haiti were mourned Saturday in Quebec. A funeral was held for UN worker Alexandra Duguay in Quebec City and a memorial mass took place for humanitarian worker Camil Perron in St-Felicien.

As of Saturday, Foreign Affairs said a total of 26 Canadians were confirmed dead as a result of the quake.