BC United seeks to prevent dangerous offenders from changing names

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VICTORIA – British Columbia’s opposition leader says community safety must come before protecting the privacy rights of dangerous people.

The public should know who lives in their community, BC United leader Kevin Falcon said Thursday after introducing proposed private member legislation to automatically prevent people convicted of dangerous crimes from legally changing their names.

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He said he introduced the proposed bill to amend the Names Act after learning that child killer Allan Schoenborn was recently allowed to legally change his name.

Schoenborn was found not criminally responsible due to a mental disorder for the 2008 murders of his three children in Merritt and changed his name, but his new identity has not been made public.

Her name change came to light when she asked the BC Review Board, the body that determines her custody status each year, to restrict publication of her new legal name.

The board denied the request, saying it would give Schoenborn until April 30 to request a legal review of its decision.

If no legal action is taken, the board said it will use Schoenborn’s current and former legal names in its reasons for disposition.

Falcon said the NDP government has the power under the current Names Act to prevent name changes, but it did not do that with Schoenborn, who has been held at the Coquitlam Forensic Psychiatric Hospital since 2010.

“This is a big problem for the safety of communities,” he said at a news conference. “And as I often say around these issues, when the government balances competing interests, I put the interests of community safety far above Allan Schoenborn’s interest in having his name changed so he can move around the community without being noticed. ”.

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Falcón recently said that allowing Schoenborn to change his name “is not acceptable.”

He said he fears a dangerous person could “show up in your community, maybe even in a neighborhood living in a basement across the street, without you knowing because the NDP allowed their last name to be changed without anyone “I knew what the new name was.” name is.”

The Opposition Name Amendment Act, if passed, would automatically prevent people designated as dangerous or long-term offenders under the Criminal Code from submitting applications to change their name, Falcón said.

“Currently, Vital Statistics, under the Ministry of Health, has full authority to deny any name change request that is ‘sought for an improper purpose or is otherwise objectionable,’” Falcón said in the legislature. “This government did not use that to prevent Schoenborn’s name change.”

Falcón asked the legislature to pass his private member’s bill as soon as possible.

Prime Minister David Eby previously said he would examine current name-changing legislation because people should not be able to evade liability for criminal offenses by changing their names.

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