VICTORIA — Offenders in British Columbia convicted of serious Criminal Code offences will no longer be permitted to legally change their names under legislation introduced today.

Health Minister Adrian Dix says the proposed law would amend the province’s Name Act to ensure people convicted of dangerous offences can’t change their name.

The legislation comes less than three weeks after Opposition BC United Leader Kevin Falcon proposed a private member’s bill to change the same act after learning child-killer Allan Schoenborn was recently permitted to legally change his name.

Schoenborn was found guilty of three counts of first-degree murder for the deaths of his own children, aged five, eight and 10, whose bodies were found in the family’s Merritt, B.C., home in 2008. 

A judge ruled Schoenborn was not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder after the verdict. 

Dix says the amended legislation will prevent convicted criminals, those who have committed offences of causing serious harm to others, from evading accountability and the consequences of their actions by changing their name.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 13, 2024.

The Canadian Press