It’s my pleasure tonight to rise in support of Bill 138, and I want to congratulate my colleagues the MPP from Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock and the MPP from Thornhill for bringing this important private member’s bill forward. It’s also my pleasure as the parliamentary assistant to the Ministry of the Attorney General to speak to this matter.

This is a government that is committed to putting the safety and well-being of our citizens and our communities first and foremost. Earlier in this session, we spoke to the need to address bail reform to make sure that a small percentage of our most violent re-offenders are kept off the streets pending trial. This debate tonight is a little bit different, because what we’re discussing is not pre-sentencing issues; what we’re talking about is post-conviction issues. That type of sentencing and carrying through on those types of sentences to make sure that we safeguard our community and specifically those that are most vulnerable in youth and women is a critical, critical issue for us.

We look at the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it states in section 1 that the charter “guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” We in Canada are somewhat unique in this. We do not prioritize rights. We don’t stack rights. They live in a continuum, in the balance that we try to strike in making sure that we have a respect for the rights of the individual, and we understand how those rights turn into obligations when we live in a community. So with a right comes an obligation. For example, in our freedom of speech: That freedom of speech is balanced by our obligation to prevent hate crimes, to not speak prejudicially about others and to make sure that the conversations we’re having are productive and discursive.

That same balancing act, Madam Speaker, exists in our Criminal Code as well. While we want to make sure that the rights of the individual charged are respected—that they get a free and impartial trial, that they have the right to a lawyer—that is balanced with the need for us to protect our citizenry and to make sure that, when we’re sentencing, we’re looking at the determinants of a sentence, from rehabilitation to retribution to deterrence. All of these foundational aspects of the sentencing process are grounded in the idea that, if you break the law, you will pay the price, and there’s a balancing to make sure that our citizens and our most vulnerable are protected from criminal conduct or the acts of others that transgress the Criminal Code.

The situation that we’re talking about tonight is really about protecting our most vulnerable. We’re looking at a convict who has been convicted of crimes, of sexual crimes against youth, against women and against other men, to make sure that they must serve the penalty that’s been meted out to them, but also that we balance that so in their post-sentencing world they will be monitored and so that we can most protect those in our society that need that protection.

Christopher’s Law, enacted in 2011, is a strong example of that. An 11-year-old boy was murdered by a convicted sex offender who had a past record and took the life of an 11-year-old, so we created a registry so that we would have a continuous record of those who had committed these most heinous crimes. What we’re doing tonight is trying to close a loophole that would allow a convicted sex offender to walk around Christopher’s Law and to subvert the protections that the government of Canada has put in place to protect the most vulnerable from a sex offender.

We have heard from the earlier speakers tonight of the prevalence of recidivism in this type of offence: as high as 35%, or one in three. If we allow name changes to take place—and we have seen that happen. We have seen it in the example of Karla Homolka. We have seen it in the case of David Donald Shumey from Saskatchewan and also in the case of Adam Budgell, who was convicted on three separate occasions of domestic abuse and rape of his former partners. One of those partners is Jenny Smith from Welland, Ontario. After the conviction of her assailant, she said, “I could sleep at night knowing that once he was released, all any person—a woman, a family member, a friend ... could” do was to “google ‘Adam Budgell’ and he could not escape what he had done.” But Adam did; he changed his name. By changing his name, he sidestepped the important tracking that could be done through Christopher’s Law to prevent, and protect our citizens.

Madam Speaker, this motion, this private members’ bill, will plug that loophole, will make sure that the intent of Christopher’s Law is abided by and will balance the rights of the individual against the collective rights of our citizenry and our communities. On this topic and in this situation, there can be no mistake that the protection and the favour must fall on the side of our citizens and our communities. For that, I will be supporting this very important private members’ bill. Again, I thank the members for their hard work on this.

And I will be sharing my time with MPP Leardi.

Further debate?

The member has two minutes to reply.

The time provided for private members’ public business has expired.

Ms. Scott has moved second reading of Bill 138, An Act to amend the Change of Name Act and to make consequential amendments to another Act. Is it the pleasure of the House that the motion carry? Carried.

Second reading agreed to.

All matters relating to private members’ public business having been completed, this House stands adjourned until Wednesday, November 15, 2023, at 9 a.m.

The House adjourned at 1831.

There are a lot of good reasons why people change their names. One of those reasons is tradition; it’s based on tradition. For example, it’s a common tradition that a person getting married might change their name to adopt the family name of their spouse. That’s a very common tradition.

There’s another reason for changing your name, and that’s a very happy reason which I experienced in my 24 years as a lawyer. It’s when a child grows up and doesn’t know who their biological mother or biological father is, but they’re brought up by somebody, and that person becomes a parent figure to them. As time goes by, they decide they want to adopt that person’s family name as a symbol of having been adopted by that person in real life. I think that’s a beautiful thing. I’ve seen that happen myself.

Of course, famous people, especially entertainers, are always changing their name. They change their name probably for promotional reasons. That’s why Destiny Hope Cyrus is Miley Cyrus. Her nickname when she was growing up was Smiley; it was abbreviated to Miley, and that’s why we know her as Miley Cyrus.

But my favourite name change stories come out of ancient history. One of my favourite name change stories is about this fellow named Jacob. Jacob was travelling across the desert with his tribe. At a certain point, he comes across another man who challenges him to a wrestling contest. They begin wrestling out there in the middle of the desert. This man strikes Jacob and renders him incapable of wrestling, so all Jacob can do is continue clinging onto this man and cling and cling. It lasts so long that finally, he forces this man to give him his blessing. It’s only then that Jacob realizes that, in fact, he has been wrestling with God. God changes his name and says, “From now on, we are going to call you Israel,” which in my translation means “he who wrestles with God.” Some of us do that every day.

There’s another great story that comes out of the ancient stories. This one has got to be my favourite. This one is about Saul. He’s riding a donkey on the way to the city of Damascus, which back then was a really big important city, and on his way, he’s blinded by light; he’s blinded by a flash of light. He falls off his donkey, and they have to carry him away and they have to care for him because he’s blind for three days. Over the course of three days, Paul experiences a conversion of sorts, after which he adopts the name “Paul.” And he goes about the rest of his life calling himself Paul. He actually happens to be one of the guys that I’ve read a lot about. He did three incredible tours around the ancient world telling everybody about his experience: how he was knocked off his donkey and blinded and how that changed his perspective on the world. And that’s the story of him.

So it’s really important during this discussion to note that anybody can change their name. You can change your name today. You can ask people to talk to you and address you by whatever name you want. But what this legislation does is this legislation deals with legal name changes—a name change which, for example, might appear on your health card or your tax return or your driver’s licence. We’re really talking about legal name changes here. And the sad reality is that there are some people in our society who change their name for not good reasons. They change their name for bad reasons. They want to change their name because they want to escape the consequences of their own bad behaviour. We should not allow people to do that. We should not allow people to change their name simply to escape the consequences of their own bad behaviour. And that is specifically what this legislation intends to address.

So I congratulate my colleagues for bringing forth this proposal. I want to speak about the member from Thornhill, one of the co-sponsors of this bill. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her. She was elected at the same time that I was elected to this Legislature, and we sat close to each other in this Legislature, and we’ve had many discussions. I find the member from Thornhill to be a very serious person. She’s professional and intelligent, and I want to let the people of Thornhill know that they have elected an excellent member of provincial Parliament who represents them well in this Legislature.

I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know the member from Haliburton–Kawartha Lakes–Brock, and what I know about her is that she has had a long and distinguished career in this Legislature. She has been elected and re-elected five times. And when you’ve been elected and re-elected five times, there’s nothing more to be said. The record speaks for itself.

I want to thank the MPP from Timiskaming–Cochrane, the MPP from Simcoe–Grey and the MPP from Essex for their support, along with the co-sponsor, MPP Laura Smith, in moving this bill forward to committee. I also want to thank the partners that have been involved with us in the House today. The 482 Collective, Victim Services of York Region, Ottawa Police Association, Smith Falls Police Association and the Niagara Region Police Association have been in contact and supportive, and of course we’ve had many conversations. And I want to thank—Madam Speaker, I know we’ve worked on bills together to further protect victims of sexual assaults and crimes.

The MPP from Simcoe–Grey articulated it very well. Two lawyers on our side that spoke to this legislation—and I just want to make clear that the legislation affects convicted sexual offenders, people that are charged with sexual abuse against our children, that are under Christopher’s Law. They have violated another human being in a way that has altered that victim’s life forever. This is about not letting them have the ability to hide from their crimes. And as was brought up in the debate, the community does not know. The community is searching for a name that is not publicly out there of someone that has committed this crime—that would be normal. If you were a concerned neighbour, you would go into many search engines and look up the neighbour’s name, but if that convicted criminal has changed their name, that does not help the community be made aware. It protects the offender, and that is what we need to change. That is why other provinces have made these changes, and we have to let victims know that their attacker will not be able to escape and that they are going to be held accountable.

Thank you very much for your co-operation, Madam Speaker, and for the time.