Before being appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on March 18, 2016, Pratte was a journalist for over 35 years and was editor-in-chief of the Montreal newspaper La Presse.
In 1994, Pratte was suspended from La Presse after publishing a column entitled “Tout est pourri” [It's all rotten], in which he criticized Power Corporation, the newspaper's owner at the time.
[5] In 2005, Pratte was among the group who signed the manifesto "For a clear-eyed vision of Quebec", better known by the French title "Pour un Québec lucide" and critical of the social democratic 'Quebec Model'.
The first, Le Syndrome de Pinocchio, discussed dishonesty in politics and earned him a motion of censure from the National Assembly of Quebec in 1997.
Pratte edited Reconquerir le Canada — un nouveau projet pour la nation québécoise (published in English as Reconquering Canada: Quebec Federalists Speak Up for Change), a book of essays by several prominent francophone Quebecers to better promote federalism in the province.
The book counts 14 authors from various political affiliations: André Pratte, Daniel Fournier, Jean Leclair, Benoît Pelletier, Marie Bernard-Meunier, Patrice Ryan et Frédéric Bérard, François Pratte, Martin Cauchon, Pierre Gerlier-Forest, Hervé Rivet and Fabrice Rivault, Marc Garneau, Mathieu Laberge.