A Caribbean holiday for Steve and April Gougeon (nee Stoker, Law’12) and their two young boys, Oliver and Wesley, turned into unimaginable tragedy.
Within hours of arriving at their Dominican Republic resort in December 2023, all four fell ill with food poisoning. April, 41, and eight-year-old Oliver would not recover.
Now, Steve Gougeon is turning his grief into giving.
The that has been established by Mr. Gougeon will help ensure future Queen’s law students can access the same “exceptional education,” regardless of financial barriers.
The endowment will be awarded with a preference for law students studying privacy law, Ms. Gougeon’s speciality.
“I want to honour my wife and her legacy and I want to make sure that her name lives on,” Mr. Gougeon says. “She was such a giving person. She always put others before herself.”
The couple met in England in 2010 when April and Steve, a Dalhousie University student, werestudying international law at Bader College at Herstmonceux Castle.
“I don’t think either of us were really expecting to meet anyone at that time in our lives,” Mr. Gougeon recalls. “But she was just a wonderful, positive person. I really gravitated toward her. She was funny and just so lovely. She loved life.”
They married in 2013. Ms. Gougeon articled with a small Ottawa law firm, then worked for Competition Bureau Canada and the CRTC before joining the Office of the Privacy Comֱer of Canada. In 2022, she joined the Toronto firm Fogler, Rubinoff LLP. Though she loved the law, Ms. Gougeon’s real passion was her family.
“More than anything else, she loved her family and her friends. Her boys were the most important thing in her life. She would do anything for them.”
She also loved craftwork and karaoke – and baking cakes.
The Dominican Republic trip was a last-minute booking, a chance to relax before Ms. Gougeon was to start a new job with the Toronto firm Norton Rose Fulbright. A lawsuit filed by the family alleges April and Oliver died from “secondary causes related to food poisoning” and that resort staff weren’t properly trained in food safety.
The April Gougeon (Stoker) Award in Law is a way to honour his wife’s love for the law and her love for Queen’s, Mr. Gougeon says.
He is grateful for the support and contributions the endowment has received from Ms. Gougeon’s Queen’s classmates and her employer. To be self-sustaining, the fund must reach $125,000.
“A lot of people want to see this happen,” he says. “I’m very confident that we’ll get to where we need to be and that my wife’s name will live on.”
