He has been a professor since 1988 in the Faculty of Economics at the Université du Québec à Montréal. He was a research scholar for the centre for research on employment and economic variations for 14 years. He was also a guest consultant for the Bank of Canada, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the Department of Finance of Canada, the Department of Human Resources Development Canada, the Central Bank of Madagascar and the Malaysian Institute of Economic Research. He was a board member of the Quebec Consumers Association.
Paquet was elected in the 2003 elections and named the chair of the Public Finances Committee from 2003 to 2005 and later the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Finance. He was re-elected in 2007.