BC United pushes to ban dangerous criminals from changing their names

BC United has put forward a private member’s bill that aims to prevent people convicted of dangerous criminal offences from being able to legally change their name.

The bill proposes changes to the British Columbia Name Act, and was tabled by BCU Leader Kevin Falcon after it was made known that convicted child killer Allan Schoenborn was recently allowed to change his name.

“It’s a very short, concise bill that will ensure that people like Allan Schoenborn have not got the opportunity to change their names and then appear in communities without those communities realizing that there’s a monster amongst them,” Falcon said Thursday.

In addition to Schoenborn’s name change, it was also revealed earlier this month at a BC Review Board hearing that the man was fighting to keep his new identity sealed from the public.

Falcon claims even without the amendments proposed by his bill, the government had the ability to stop Schoenborn from seeking a new name.

“That power does exist under the Vital Statistics Act. For whatever reason, this government chose not to use the power that they have to ensure that he does not change his name and pose a risk to other children, potentially,” the BC United leader said.

Schoenborn has been incarcerated at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam since 2010, after he was found not criminally responsible for killing his three children in Merritt in 2008.

Premier David Eby said earlier he will look at the current name-change legislation because people should not be able to evade responsibility for criminal offences by changing their names.

Earlier this month, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said it was “absolutely outrageous” that Schoenborn was able to change his name and that he wanted to keep it from the public.

“I think everybody would be concerned. The idea that someone, whether this individual or another individual that’s committed an absolutely heinous crime, can change their name without notification to the public — that’s just wrong,” he said Thursday, April 18.

“That is absolutely wrong and just not acceptable.”

-With files from The Canadian Press