He was also pursuing a LL.D in constitutional law at the Université de Montréal as well as a diploma in public administration at the École nationale d'administration publique.

He ran as the CAQ candidate in Marie-Victorin in the 2012 Quebec election, coming in second to Bernard Drainville of the Parti Québécois (PQ).

[3][5] In the 2014 election, Jolin-Barrette defeated the PQ candidate in Borduas, Pierre Duchesne (the then Minister of Higher Education, Research, Science and Technology), by 99 votes.

The government invoked section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the notwithstanding clause) so as to prevent it from being overturned by the courts.

[28][29][30] Members of the trans community expressed fears that it would return Québec to the legal gender recognition laws that existed before 2015, could forcibly out trans people (if they chose to add the "gender" option instead of applying to change the "sex" field), and could potentially lead to people being "forced" into having surgery in order to change the contents of the "sex" field.

[28] Celeste Trianon of the Centre for Gender Advocacy at Concordia University argued that the bill was "attempting to reintroduce a sterilizing surgical requirement," calling it "a direct attack on the trans community."