Prior to her position, Bernier joined the Bar of Quebec in 1978 before starting her Canadian government experience in the early 1990s.
During the early to late 1990s, she was an advisor for the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada and Department of Justice.
After ending her government tenure in 2014, Bernier became a privacy counsel for Dentons in 2014. she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.
Bernier graduated from a law program at the University of Sherbrooke in 1977 and a master's degree at the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1980.
[1] After briefly working at the Privy Council Office as an operations director for a year, Bernier was an assistant deputy minister for the Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada until 2002.