Bourque's dream for Haitian orphanage is alive
Last Updated: Tuesday, February 28, 2006 | 8:00 AM ET
CBC News
The Saskatchewan cousin of a former Mountie slain in Haiti is speaking out about efforts to complete his final mission – bringing electricity to a Haitian orphanage.
Mark Bourque, 57, was gunned down in an ambush in the strife-torn country on Dec. 20, 2005. He was working with a UN team helping to prepare for the country's elections in January.
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Mark Bourque. (CP file photo)
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- FROM DEC. 20, 2005: Canadian peacekeeper shot by Haitian gunmen
Bourque was a retired RCMP officer from Quebec but had several family members in Saskatchewan. At the time of his death, he was also trying to arrange for an electrical generator for an orphanage.
Following Bourque's death, family and friends wanted to help him complete his quest.
Doug LaBrash, a cousin from Saskatoon, told CBC that a friend of Bourque, Raymond Kyling, contacted a generator wholesaler. Kyling arranged to have the machinery shipped to Haiti through the office of Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean, who immigrated to Canada from that country.LaBrash said the school, which houses the young girls, has only limited access to electricity, so the generator should be a big help.
"These are orphan children from hardships," he said. "A lot of them are children from parents who had died from AIDS."
LaBrash said seeing Mark Bourque's goal realized helped him deal with his cousin's death, although he still can't make any sense out of why it happened.
"It's kind of tragic, that after 34 years with the RCMP … he wasn't even on a mission that guns should have been involved in," he said. "Just a weird ambush on one of the roads in the morning."
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