A professional killer-turned-police informer told authorities that he had offered a $100,000 bounty on the life of crime reporter Daniel Renaud.
The report says that Frédérick Silva, a professional killer-turned-police informer, told authorities that he had in 2021 offered a $100,000 bounty on the life of journalist Daniel Renaud, who reports on organized crime for La Presse and who was, at the time the contract was offered, covering Silva’s trial for three murders.
The report says Silva later withdrew the bounty after about two months, saying he had “more important problems to deal with.”
“My thoughts are with journalist Daniel Renaud,” Premier François Legault wrote on X. “We will never accept that journalists are threatened for doing their job. We must never yield to intimidation.”
Public Security Minister François Bonnardel said he was “shaken” by what he had read about Renaud, adding that his thoughts went out to the journalist and his family.
Bernard Drainville, now the education minister, was a radio host at the time the contract on Renaud was issued, noting the journalist had been scheduled to appear on his show to discuss organized crime.
Drainville said the report might suggest it is time for journalists to be offered police protection, but added he was only “thinking out loud.”
Vincent Marissal, a Québec solidaire MNA who formerly worked as a journalist at La Presse along with Renaud, said the news had left him “shocked” and “horrified.”
“I just want to express my solidarity with journalists and with Daniel in particular,” Marissal told reporters. “(Renaud) is a guy I know … he’s not the loudest guy in the newsroom. But, apparently, he’s bothering a lot of people, which means he’s doing his job.”
While news of the bounty placed on Renaud’s life was shocking, it is hardly a first in Quebec. In 2000, Michel Auger, who organized crime for the Journal de Montréal, survived a murder attempt that saw him shot six times in the back. Auger continued to cover organized crime and died in 2020 at the age of 76.
In 1973, Jean-Pierre Charbonneau, a crime reporter for Le Devoir, was shot in the arm by a Mafia member who opened fire on him in the paper’s newsroom.
Charbonneau later entered provincial politics, serving as a Parti Québécois MNA.