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There’s no question Benoît Dorais screwed up badly by driving 71 kilometres over the speed limit on a South Shore highway last spring.

As first reported by Le Journal de Montréal last week, the chairman of Montreal’s executive committee and Sud-Ouest borough mayor was pulled over on Highway 35 in April, clocked doing 171 km/h. His licence was immediately suspended for seven days. He was docked 14 demerit points and handed a $1,378 fine.

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If this had happened in Ontario, it would have qualified as stunt driving. He would have had his car seized on the spot and risked a fine as high as $10,000 or even jail time.

Speeding that fast is dangerous. It’s reckless behaviour that deserves to be curbed with serious consequences.

But should such an offence disqualify someone from holding public office in 2019?

Montreal’s opposition parties certainly think so.

Marvin Rotrand, the councillor for Snowdon, is calling on Dorais to resign for his “remarkably poor judgment” — or at the very least quit the executive committee and sit as an independent.