About me

Before the public service

I grew up in Papineauville, a small peaceful village. With a population of barely 1,500, it is located 1 hour from Ottawa-Gatineau and 2 hours from Montreal, on the Kitchissippi (Ottawa River).

I come from a decidedly francophone family: the vast majority of my ancestors were French settlers who arrived in New France between 1608 and 1759.

I went to study in Montreal at the dawn of my 18th birthday.

I did a college degree in Arts and Letters. Then I started a bachelor’s degree in literature at UQAM. For many reasons, I didn’t complete my studies: difficulty to fit into the mold, great ambitions, and some disillusionment.

Ater coming back to settle in Gatinau, and another try at University, I finally accepted that my path was not that of higher education. I am self-taught, curious, stubborn, scattered and a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. I had to find another way to carve a path for myself.

Career

I started my career as a public servant at the Canada Revenue Agency in 2007, in a call center. I worked there for a few years before joining the publications team, which also managed the website.

That’s when I really found my career path: organizing information and developing content to help people. Serving the public, through words.

Since then, one thing led to another and I learned a lot. Writing for the web, UX, content design, service design, evidence-based improvement: I try to draw from many disciplines to design the best content possible.

I am currently working at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, leading a team using evidence for continuous improvement of the web presence.