Province makes quick U-turn on sex criminal name change legislation

A law passed last year to prevent convicted sex offenders from changing their names is now in effect, the province said Wednesday.

The announcement came only hours after the Free Press reported the case of a repeat offender who legally changed his name and was then charged with committing more sex crimes.

“If you commit a sexual offence against a child, you cannot change your name in Manitoba,” Premier Wab Kinew told the house Wednesday in response to questions about why the legislation passed more than a year ago wasn’t in force yet.

The Free Press reported Tuesday about a mother who learned that a man she came to trust and allowed to spend time with her preteen son was a convicted child sex offender who had changed his name.

Ryan Knight was charged in July with allegedly making and possessing child pornography, sexual interference and aggravated sexual assault between Aug. 1, 2024, and March 1 this year.

Knight, 44, was born Ryan Gabourie, and under that name was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2005 for sexually molesting five young boys after he entered their homes through unlocked windows and doors.

Bill 23, the province’s Change of Name Amendment Act, received royal assent in June 2024 but did not go into effect, awaiting the establishment of regulations.

Asked Tuesday why the regulations were not in place more than a year after the legislation was passed, Public Services Delivery Minister Mintu Sandhu said in a prepared statement that his department “is working hard to develop the regulations required to proclaim the amendments…. Once consultations are complete, we intend to have a spring 2026 proclamation.”

On Wednesday, Sandhu said he spoke to his department about getting the law into force “as soon as possible.”

He signed an order in council in the morning to establish the regulations.

“The delay in enacting the regulations was the result of the province doing its due diligence, including a mandatory jurisdictional scan of every province in Canada,” said department spokesperson Caedmon Malowany.

Opposition MLAs took the government to task for the delay.

“Despite background checks and Google searches, this person had access to (the mother’s) home and her children for five years because he was legally allowed to change his name,” said Liberal MLA Cindy Lamoureux (Tyndall Park).

The Change of Name Act now requires a criminal record check when a name change application is made. The director of Vital Statistics must refuse the change if the record check discloses that the applicant was convicted of an offence that meets criteria set out in the regulations unless an exemption is granted by the minister.

“This situation is every parent’s worst nightmare,” Sandhu said during question period, referring to the mother in Tuesday’s report.

”I want to extend my deepest sympathy to this family for what they are going through.”

The mother, identified as “Lisa” in the Free Press, said she was happy to hear the province has closed the door allowing sex offenders to change their names.

“I think it’s a good first step toward protecting people in the community and victims,” she said.

“But there is still a really long way to go. We need a firm reassessment of child protection laws and whether or not the systems and regulations we have in place are reducing recidivism of offenders.”

Monique St. Germain, general counsel for the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, said it was too early to comment on the new law because the province had not yet publicly published details about how it will be applied.

“The law itself definitely is the right direction, but sometimes the devil is in the details, and that’s where the regulations really become important,” she said.

“The legislature doesn’t have to get into the nitty-gritty detail of how exactly it’s going to work… so the regulations are an incredibly important part of understanding how the law is going to work.”

Germain said she is looking forward to reviewing the regulations when they become available. She said laws preventing sex offenders from changing their names should be uniform across all Canadian jurisdictions to prevent those convicted from moving between provinces in order to circumvent such restrictions.

— With files from Dean Pritchard and Tyler Searle

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca