Claude Poirier
Canadian journalist
Joseph Edmour Claude Poirier (October 26, 1938) is a Canadian journalist, columnist and negotiator. He is a long-time crime reporter for TVA, and is also known as a hostage negotiator.
Life and career
Poirier's 60-year career as a crime reporter started in 1960 when he covered a bank robbery. He continued to do the job for several months without receiving a salary. Soon after, he reported on the assassinations of U.S. president John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy as well as civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. In Quebec, he covered the kidnapping and subsequent murder of former Quebec Liberal Minister of Labor Pierre Laporte, by the FLQ militant group in 1970.
During his career Poirier has participated in numerous inquiries and trials as an expert and as a witness. He covered the widely publicized biker gang war that broke out in Quebec during the 1990s as well as trials in notorious murder or crime cases such as the trial of several biker gang members arrested during a province-wide police operation called "Printemps 2001" which significantly reduced their criminal activities around the province.
During hostage situations or similar events, criminals often asked police for a negotiation with Poirier. In August 2007, he was heavily involved over the well-publicized case of the disappearance of a 10-year-old girl, Cédrika Provencher, in Trois-Rivières, in a possible case of abduction.
The public source identifies “Claude Poirier” as canadian journalist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Claude, Poirier and Canadian.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2977985. VIAF identifies the subject as 103991872. The Library of Congress control number is n2019013164. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1938, 1960, 1970 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “Claude Poirier” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.