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McMahon’s late husband, OPP officer Greg Stobbart, died in 2006 after a driver struck him while he was cycling. The driver, Michael Duggan, had five convictions for driving with a suspended licence, four for driving uninsured, and a criminal record to boot. He had only just gotten his licence back — and only lost it again for a year.

“People rarely feel gratified by someone who kills their loved one and walks away with a $500 fine,” says McMahon. “I want to recognize and honour that feeling of egregious resentment that people feel, that the law really … isn’t reflecting their sentiments.”

She hopes the bill will resurface in the province’s legislature during this session, and pass before the summer break. But I’m not sure it will really salve much resentment. The minimum fine would be $2,000, the maximum $50,000. The maximum jail sentence would be two years, up from six months. The maximum licence suspension would go from two years to five. That’s something — but still not much, surely, measured against a human life.

And on driving bans, I still find myself asking: Why not 10 years? Why not forever — certainly on a second or third offence? And I keep hearing variations on the same answer: well, some people simply need to drive — certainly rural people; certainly people in certain professions. McMahon seems to prefer the ideas of a “short, sharp (jail) sentence.” But I’m not sure why two years in jail — a life-altering event — is widely considered appropriate but, say, having to move or get a new job isn’t. As consequences go for killing someone, those don’t strike me as cruel and unusual.