Canadian death toll in Haiti rises to 8

Two more Canadians were confirmed dead Saturday as a result of the Haitian earthquake, raising this country's death toll in the disaster to eight.

Supt. Doug Coates's body was found in the rubble of the United Nations headquarters in the capital Port-au-Prince, RCMP Commissioner Bill Elliott said Saturday in Ottawa.

Coates, the senior Mountie in Haiti, was mentoring police officers. RCMP Sgt. Mark Gallagher of Nova Scotia was found dead earlier this week. Elliott called both men heroes.

Denis Bellavance, a professor from Drummondville, Que., who was teaching at the university in Port-au-Prince, also died in the quake, his family said Saturday.

Other Canadian victims include: Montreal native Guillaume Siemienski, an employee working with the Canadian International Development Agency; Hélène Rivard, a CIDA consultant; nurse Yvonne Martin of Elmira, Ont.; and Montreal university professor Georges Anglade and his wife, Mireille, who were confirmed dead earlier in the week.

The number of Canadians still unaccounted for in Haiti has dropped to 1,362, down from 1,415, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Saturday.

The minister said a total of 781 Canadians have been located and embassy staff are continuing to provide assistance to get many of them out of the quake zone and returned to Canada.

"This morning an aircraft with 196 evacuees on board departed Port-au-Prince," said Cannon, who, along with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, offered condolences to the families of Canadians who died when the 7.0 magnitude quake struck Tuesday.

Harper issued a statement extending his condolences to the friends and families of the latest Canadian victims to be identified.

"Their deaths are a reminder of the sacrifice Canadian men and women like Siemienski and Rivard are willing to make in order to bring Canadian generosity and aid to Haiti and the world," he said.

"On behalf of all Canadians, Laureen and I would like to offer their families and friends our profound sympathies. Our thoughts and prayers are with them during this difficult time."

At Saturday's media briefing, Harper — flanked by Cannon, as well as Minister of Defence Peter MacKay, Minister of International Co-operation Bev Oda, Minister of Immigration Jason Kenney and Minister of State for the Americas Peter Kent — talked about the quake's impact.

"The devastation in Haiti was instant, utter and widespread. Homes have been flattened, almost every major government building has been damaged beyond repair, and hardly any of the telephones work.

"Canada has, as you know, a close and historical relationship with the government and people of Haiti and we take our role for security in the hemisphere very very seriously," Harper said.

The federal government is working with information garnered from 21,500 calls to its operations room at the Department of Foreign Affairs in order to figure out who remains missing.

It's also relying on a list of Canadians who formally registered with the embassy in Haiti, where as many as 200,000 people are feared dead in the aftermath of the quake.

Four flights carrying evacuees arrived in Canada on Friday. The plan is to send two C-17 transports every day, with smaller C-130 Hercules aircraft making three flights every two days.

Two Canadian warships, HMCS Athabaskan and HMCS Halifax are expected to arrive early next week with additional supplies and personnel.