MONTREAL - Christiane Pelchat's frantic search for her husband, former Liberal MP Serge Marcil, took her to three countries and ended in heartbreak in the ruins of earthquake battered Haiti.

His body was found in the rubble of the Hotel Montana in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. He was 65.

"Serge was a gift life gave me," Pelchat said in a statement released Saturday.

"He was a humanist, a loving husband, caring, with a natural tenderness."

Pelchat, president of a Quebec women's association, arrived in Haiti Friday to help in the search for her husband. It was there she learned his body had been found by emergency crews two hours prior to her arrival.

Marcil was a federal Liberal MP until 2004, and was briefly a Quebec cabinet minister before that.

Soon after the quake, a false report surfaced that he was alive and had been taken to a hospital in Miami, Fla. Another report suggested he had been taken to the neighbouring Dominican Republic for treatment.

Both proved untrue and sparked a desperate search by his loved ones. Pelchat first rushed to the United States to reunite with him at the hospital where she learned the report had been an error. The family then travelled to the Dominican Republic, before the search ended Friday.

Quebec Premier Jean Charest called Marcil a remarkable parliamentarian Saturday, after attending a mass in Montreal commemorating the victims of the Haitian earthquake.

"He was committed to development work and had a love for Haiti," Charest said. "He was a parliamentarian who embodied an openness to the outside world. It was with great sadness I learned of has death."

He said had sent his condolences earlier Saturday to Marcil's son, Olivier, who is one of the Quebec premier's advisers.

Marcil was a Liberal member of Parliament from 2000 to 2004, and before that was briefly a provincial labour minister in the cabinet of Liberal premier Daniel Johnson.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff also paid tribute.

"Everyone who knew Serge remembers him as a kind and determined man, who was appreciated by his colleagues, no matter where he worked," Ignatieff said in a statement. "He had a distinguished political career at many levels."

Marcil had been working with the engineering firm, SM International Group, at the time of his death.

Just moments before the quake, he was riding in an elevator at the now-destroyed hotel, where he was staying with a colleague, the company said.

It said Marcil's colleague got off on the fourth floor and was rescued the next day, while Marcil was headed to the fifth floor.

Marcil sought re-election in 2004 but lost his seat to the Bloc Quebecois' Alain Boire.