A well-known Quebec entrepreneur and philanthropist and his partner have reportedly been found dead in the Caribbean, where they owned a luxury resort, local reports have confirmed.
According to several French-speaking news networks in Quebec, film entrepreneur Daniel Langlois and his partner Dominique Marchand were found Friday inside a burned vehicle after having disappeared for several days on the island of Dominica, where they opened the hotel off-grid. in 2022.
Global Affairs Canada (GAC) confirmed Sunday that it had been informed of the suspected deaths of two Canadians on the island, but did not provide further details.
“Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the Canadian citizens involved,” Marilyne Guèvremont, AMC media relations manager, said in a statement sent to Global News.
She added that Canadian authorities continue to monitor the situation and work with local authorities. Local police say they have arrested three suspects in connection with the deaths, according to local media Dominica News Online and Dom767.
According to Quebec media, Langlois made more than $200 million in 1994 from the sale of his 3D animation software company Softimage, which he founded in 1986. The software was used in films like Jurassic Park , Titanic, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. and Pirates of the Caribbean. It was bought by Microsoft, but the company remained in Montreal.
He then founded the Ex-Centris cinema in 1999, co-founded the Festival du nouveau cinéma and set up a foundation in his name to support technological projects in the arts and sciences.
Several figures from Quebec politics and the cultural industry reacted to the news on Sunday, including the federal Minister of Canadian Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, who called Langlois a visionary of digital technologies and cinema who left a lasting impact .
“His legacy reflects his innovative spirit,” she wrote in a statement.
Langlois and his partner are said to have lived for many years on the Caribbean island between Guadeloupe and Martinique. They opened their luxury self-contained Coulibri Ridge Eco-resort just a year ago. It won a design award soon after.
According to local media on the island, the couple had been reported missing and the burned vehicle matched the one they were driving. The bodies were found after authorities were alerted to a burning vehicle.
The scale of the fire made the bodies unidentifiable, Dominica News Online said, adding that authorities were able to link the Quebecers to the incident through circumstantial evidence.
Langlois, in his sixties, previously owned a private club in Montreal, Club 357c, which closed its doors in 2019. The establishment was implicated in Quebec’s biggest political scandal, the Charbonneau Commission, ago more than ten years.
He also founded a hurricane relief organization to help rebuild island communities after Hurricane Maria in 2017, and purchased the summit of Mount Pinnacle in Coaticook, Quebec. in the Eastern Townships, near the American border, to protect the fauna and flora of the summit.
Langlois was honored as a Knight of the National Order of Quebec in 1999 and an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2000, and holds honorary doctorates from McGill, Ottawa, Concordia, Sherbrooke and Quebec universities in Montreal.