COLUMN: Think Again – It should be one strike and you’re out

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This article was published 06/04/2025 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I’ve always believed in second chances. Everyone makes mistakes, and it’s only fair to let people learn from them.

At least this makes sense most of the time. Some crimes are bad enough that you don’t deserve a second chance.

For example, if you hit and kill someone while driving impaired, you should never drive a car again. While we can’t throw these impaired drivers in prison for the rest of their lives, we can certainly take away their car keys.

On May 1, 2022, 24-year-old Jordyn Reimer was struck and killed by a drunk driver. The man who struck her car was driving his pickup truck 108 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. Reimer never had a chance.

The driver of the truck pleaded guilty to impaired driving causing death and was sentenced to seven years in prison. However, he can apply for parole after serving just one-third of his sentence.

That is a woefully short sentence for such a serious crime. It’s even more inadequate when we realize that this same driver will likely be back on the road at some point. We can only hope that he doesn’t kill someone else.

Earlier this year, the Manitoba NDP government introduced legislation to toughen up the penalties against drinking and driving. Bill 5 will make it possible for drunk drivers who kill someone to receive a permanent licence suspension.

Unfortunately, there’s a significant catch—drunk drivers must kill people on two separate occasions before they lose their licence for good. In other words, the NDP thinks that killing one person isn’t serious enough to warrant a lifetime driving prohibition. They need to kill someone two separate times.

To make matters worse, Bill 5 states that these two offences must occur within ten years of each other. Thus, if a drunk driver kills an 85-year-old senior on his first offence and then runs over a ten-year-old girl twelve years later, he still won’t have his licence taken away for life. That’s because these offences happened too far apart.

In defending his bill, Justice Minister Matt Wiebe argued that, based on legal advice his department received, “a lifetime suspension after a first offence could be seen as a disproportionate response.” Wiebe also expressed concern that a lifetime driving prohibition could be challenged in court.

As a result, Wiebe is choosing to play it safe—at least in a legal sense. Bill 5, however, doesn’t do enough to keep innocent drivers and their passengers safe from drunk drivers. And that is much more important.

Yes, it’s possible that permanently taking licences away from impaired drivers will be challenged in court. But this is the type of legal fight that any government worth its salt should welcome. If I were the justice minister, I’d much rather err on the side of being too tough on impaired drivers than risk letting impaired drivers have the opportunity to kill more people through their reckless actions.

Even if a judge strikes down a lifetime driving ban on the basis that it violates the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment in the Charter of Rights, the government could easily invoke the Charter’s notwithstanding clause and keep the penalty in place. In the end, elected politicians, not unelected judges, should have the final say on these kinds of policy issues.

There’s no excuse for drinking and driving. There’s even less excuse if you hit and kill someone while driving impaired. When it comes to crimes as serious as this one, it should be one strike and you’re out.

Jordyn Reimer and other victims of drunk driving deserve no less.

Michael Zwaagstra is a high school teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.