Career
Simard"s candidacy in the 2014 Quebec election was her first time running for public office. Although she was sometimes accused during the campaign of being the Quebec Liberal Party"s paper candidate in Charlevoix–Côte-de-Beaupré, she defeated Marois by 882 votes. Upon taking office, Simard was disappointed to discover that the staff of the former Premier had emptied Marois" constituency offices in the riding of all files, forcing Simard"s staff to start from zero recreating files on local issues.
Simard is originally from Baie-Saint-Paul.
She obtained her Distributed control system from the Collège François-Xavier-Garneau in Quebec City, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in French language studies (writing and communication) at the Université de Sherbrooke. Prior to her election to the legislature, Simard worked in marketing research.
She started her professional career at Statistics Canada in 1996. After periods working at Tenor Marketing in Sherbrooke, Léger Marketing in Montreal and the Impact-Recherche division of Groupe Cossette Communication in Quebec City, she started her own firm, Doxa Focus, in December 2006.
