According to a Jan. 27 news release, the two sides have agreed to an employment contract spanning four years and involving 126 Crowns working in the Nova Scotia Public Prosecution Service (PPS) and represented by the Nova Scotia Crown Attorney’s Association (NSCAA).
The agreement runs April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2027 and “was reached with the support of a conciliator.”
In a statement, NSCAA president Brian Cox said his organization “welcomes this new employment agreement.”
“On behalf of all Nova Scotia’s Crown attorneys, who work every day to ensure justice for vulnerable victims of crime, I want to extend our appreciation to the Province for its commitment to recruiting and retaining the dedicated professionals Nova Scotians deserve,” said Cox.
Nova Scotia justice minister Becky Druhan said the two sides acted “in good faith.”
“I thank the association, the negotiating teams and all Crown attorneys for the important work they do every day on behalf of Nova Scotians,” said Druhan. “We came to the table in good faith, and I am pleased that we were able to reach an agreement.”
The agreement includes salary increases of three per cent on April 1, 2023; 0.5 per cent on March 1, 2024; three per cent on April 1, 2024; two per cent on April 1, 2025; and two per cent on April 1, 2026.
Talking with Law360 Canada, NSCAA’s Cox said the pay increases will happen retroactively for the 2023 and 2024 dates.
The agreement also sees a “classification adjustment” for all Crowns. Cox said this change to the salary structure is “to reflect years of relevant experience” and allows Crowns to “progress through the entire salary scheme as they gain years of relevant experience.”
The new deal also provides for an “on-call compensation” adjustment, which Cox said involves “remuneration for working as after-hours duty counsel,” such as the providing of after-hours legal advice to police and appearing for after-hours “telebail” hearings.
According to the release, the agreement also calls for “enhancements to equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility language and efficiencies in the hiring process.”
This agreement is not the only development to impact prosecutors in the province as of late. A year ago, Nova Scotia’s government announced it was hiring additional Crown prosecutors to address a longstanding shortage.
On Jan. 25, 2024, the province said it would be adding 11 new Crowns to the PPS, as well as six new legal assistants and 10 new positions for the PPS’s “intake team pilot project.”
Prior to this, the NSCAA had been raising red flags over what it called an “impossible” workload faced by its members due to a backlog of complex criminal cases.
In late 2023, Cox said prosecutors were facing “unprecedented” rates of burnout, and that 20 per cent of the PPS’s workforce had left over the course of that year. At the time, Cox pointed to big backlogs in homicide, sex assault and impaired driving cases.
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