Christian Gammon-Roy
Tribune
West Nipissing saw a significant change on November 10 when Mike Pilon stepped in as Chief Administrative Officer (CAO), replacing Jay Barbeau who had ended his 25 years in the role on October 10. Pilon retired from the Ontario Provincial Police before taking over as CAO and brings with him over 30 years of experience with the police service. The last 3-and-a-half of those years he spent as Chief Superintendent and Regional Command for the Northeast Region. The new CAO took a moment to talk about what led him to the job, and to West Nipissing in general, and what he hopes to bring to the administration and the municipality at large.
“I spent 24 years of my career in the far north, in the Cochrane, Kapuskasing, Timmins area. I raised my family there. I’m originally from Sudbury, and I have family here in West Nipissing [and] in the North Bay area. In 2018, I was promoted to the rank of Superintendent at the regional headquarters in North Bay, and in that year of transition I was looking for a place to live. West Nipissing was on my radar because my wife and I are francophone, and we enjoy the more cozy, small town,” recounts Pilon. Family, he says, also played a big part in the decision to settle here, as his parents and a sister live in the community. It also serves as the perfect central point for his four adult daughters to come and visit from time to time.
Of course, as he points out, his work with the Northeast Region OPP took him throughout the largest catchment area of the 5 OPP regions. That meant a lot of time away from home. So, when the job opportunity for CAO came up, Pilon says he was eager to be able to continue working in public service, but do it right at home. It was also a change of pace. “I was really looking for that next opportunity. There’s a lot of opportunity within law enforcement or corrections, that whole sort of envelope that I had been immersed in for the last 30-plus years, but really, I was looking for something a little bit different,” he explains, adding that the timing was perfect.
So, Pilon applied for the job, went through the interview process, which started in February 2025 with 32 applicants. Following several rounds of interviews, he was eventually selected in September by council. Pilon then retired from the OPP at the end of October. He says that while he had been eligible for retirement for over a year, he “wasn’t prepared to stop working. I wanted to continue to contribute to public service, and this is sort of that next chapter for me.”
