[1][2] In 1994, MacKinnon was suspended from the Liberal caucus for refusing to vote in favor of the government's municipal services exchange bill.
[1] MacKinnon sat as an independent until he resigned his seat on April 10, 1995,[3][4] to make an unsuccessful bid to become mayor of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.
[6] He sat as an independent from April 2005 and did not run for reelection in 2006,[7] when he was defeated in a bid to win the Progressive Conservative nomination in Cape Breton West.
[3] On February 14, 2011, it was announced that MacKinnon was among four people facing criminal charges in connection with the RCMP investigation into 2010s MLA expense scandal.
MacKinnon was charged with fraud exceeding $5,000, breach of trust by a public officer, and 8 counts of uttering a forged document.