13 Jul Crown Attorney Dedicated to the Prosecution of Human Trafficking Offences

Senior Crown attorney Josie McKinney will become Nova Scotia’s first Crown attorney dedicated to the prosecution of human trafficking offences.

In this role, Ms. McKinney prosecute human trafficking offences and provide training on the issue to provincial Crown attorneys. She will work collaboratively with other justice partners in the effort to combat human trafficking.

This new position is part of the province’s $5 million initiative to address human trafficking, which also includes an increased focus on investigating these cases and on providing support to victims and their families.

Ms. McKinney is Mi’kmaq and Maliseet and an alumna of the Indigenous Black and Mi’kmaq Initiative at Dalhousie University. A graduate of Dalhousie Law School, she articled with the Nova Scotia Department of Justice before joining the University of Ottawa Community Legal Clinic as Coordinator of Aboriginal Legal Services in 2007. There, she provided legal advice and representation in criminal law and represented clients in the Indian Residential School Settlement claims process.

In 2011, Ms. McKinney returned to Nova Scotia and was appointed a Crown attorney in the Yarmouth office of the Public Prosecution Service, moving to the Halifax office in 2018. Ms. McKinney is an experienced prosecutor and has worked on cases involving homicides, sexual assaults and child luring. Ms. McKinney was the primary author of the Public Prosecution Service’s recently issued policy, Fair Treatment of Indigenous Peoples in Criminal Prosecutions in Nova Scotia.

Ms. McKinney is active in the legal community. She is a Halifax representative on the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society Bar Council, which oversees regulation of the legal profession, and co-chair of the society’s Racial Equity Committee. Ms. McKinney is an active volunteer mentor for law students of the Indigenous Black and Mi’kmaq Initiative.