He was born in Anderdon Township, Essex County, Canada West, the son of farmer Oliver Reaume, and received his teacher's certificate in 1873.
During his time as the first Franco-Ontarian cabinet minister, the government of Sir James Pliny Whitney decided to impose Regulation 17, which effectively placed severe restrictions on all French instruction in the province's bilingual elementary schools following the Merchant Report in 1912.
Reaume defended the government's policy and its subsequent modifications in Regulation 18 which allowed for one hour of French instruction per day in the previously bilingual schools.
Reaume argued that many Franco-Ontarian parents actually wished that their children would receive a first class education in English in order to access better paying jobs.
[1] For more information about Joseph Octave Reaume see Jack D. Cecillon, Prayers Petitions and Protests: The Catholic Church and the Ontario Schools Crisis in the Windsor Border Region, 1910–1927, (Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013).