Idaho and Canada "Sister Sects"




Idaho and Canada "Sister Sects"


Teressa Wall Blackmore is now fighting for custody of her children because of FLDS retaliation for her testimony on behalf of her sister, Elissa Wall, during the Rape as an Accomplice trial of Warren Jeffs. Go here for more information on this terrible situation and how you can help Teressa maintain custody of her children!


KTVB For decades there has been a "sister sect" of the Utah/Arizona polygamists just across the southern border of British Columbia, Canada (only a few miles from Idaho). A few years ago, there was a split in the Canadian FLDS group and now there are two seperate factions - one still in Bountiful, Canada (led by Warren Jeffs) and the other one in Bountiful, Canada and Bonners Ferry, Idaho (led by Winston Blackmore). It has been reported that underage girls are "swapped" between the Utah/Arizona group and these two northern groups to provide the brethren with "Child Brides." Below are some news articles on these "northern" communes. These articles are listed in chronological order.


Canada Court: Polygamy Ban is Invalid
The Associated Press Originally published June 16, 1992
CRESTON, British Columbia -- Canadian authorities have declined to charge two leaders of a polygamous commune, concluding that a law banning plural marriage unconstitutionally restricts religious freedom. "Section 293 is invalid and will not be enforced in B.C.," crown counsel Herman Rohrmoser said last week in summing up nine months of research into possible charges against the leaders of a breakaway Mormon sect. A woman who fled the commune near Creston, 75 miles north of Spokane, Wash., denounced the decision. Inaction by the B.C. Attorney General's Ministry legalizes the sexual, physical and emotional abuse women suffer in plural marriages, said Debbie Palmer, 36, a mother of seven who left the commune in 1988. But an elder in the United Effort Order, a 10,000-member group based in Colorado City, Ariz., whose followers run the Canadian commune, applauded the decision. Dan Barlow, Colorado City, said the decision is another signpost along the road to legalization of polygamy in the United States. Read more


The practice of polygamy: a Mormon colony stirs a B.C. controversy
By Steve Weatherbe Maclean's Magazine Originally published August 16, 1993
Unlike many other parts of British Columbia's mountainous Interior, the town of Creston is no tourist mecca. A pleasant community of 4,500 people, Creston's trim frame homes sprawl across a ridge in the southeastern part of the province, just north of the U.S. border. The town boasts no hot springs, no water slides -- not even a miniature golf course to amuse visitors. But about 15 km south of Creston, along back roads choked with wildflowers, lies a collection of large modern homes scattered among 700 acres of hay fields. And it is here, in a place known as Bountiful, that a small colony of practising polygamists has, for better or ill, put Creston on the map. Over the past three years, the 400 members of the Bountiful colony have found themselves in the glare of unwelcome publicity. During that time, the colonists -- part of a fundamentalist sect that broke with the Mormon church over the latter's decision to abandon the practice of polygamy -- have been the subject of a 13-month RCMP investigation. It concluded that two of Bountiful's leaders should be prosecuted for violating the Criminal Code's prohibition of polygamy -- a recommendation that is currently the subject of heated debate between British Columbia and federal justice officials. As well, in four separate criminal cases, four former members of the colony have been convicted of sexual assault charges. Read more


Minister of Justice asked to investigate polygamy in BC
By Mark Kelley CBC-TV The National Transcripts Originally published January 13, 2000
MARK KELLEY: The Minister of Justice has been asked to investigate the practises of a church in British Columbia. It practises polygamy. The leader of the church, who grew up with more than one mother, admits he has more than one wife. They all live together in a compound in the town of Lister, BC, near the border with Idaho. The CBC's Kelly Crowe has the story. KELLY CROWE (Reporter): They call it Bountiful. A quiet place with a reputation. That's because Bountiful is known as a community where it's normal to have more than one wife. Leader Winston Blackmore says polygamy has always been a part of his religion. WINSTON BLACKMORE (Church Leader): I am what I am. I was born that and I was born to a father that, and family that had more mothers than one. And I've never known anything different. Read more


Polygamists scoop teens
Girls allegedly being wed to elders of church with communes in U.S., B.C
By Fabian Dawson The Province Originally published September 22, 2000
A secretive commune in southern B.C. is part of a U.S. probe into the arranged marriages of under-age American girls to priests of the polygamous community. On Friday, Utah's State Attorney appointed a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of child abuse and teen brides in the 30,000-member Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which has communes on the Utah-Arizona border and in the Kootenay town of Lister. The arranged marriages are on the rise because the church's leader had predicted that the end of the world is near and that only those in "celestial pairings" will be saved. Prosecutor Ron Barton has been contacted by ex-members of the church and by a child advocacy group to investigate the movement of young girls between Arizona, Utah and B.C. Read more


B.C. commune quiet about underage marriage investigation
Members feel victimized
By Robert Remington The Province Originally published September 26, 2000
LISTER, B.C. - Members of what has been described as a polygamist commune say they are being persecuted but declined yesterday to discuss their lifestyle or comment on reports they are being investigated by U.S. authorities for arranged marriages of underage girls. "You have to understand what we have been through recently and the sensitive nature of it," said Merrill Palmer, principal of the school on the Bountiful commune, located in the Creston Valley, just north of the British Columbia-Idaho border. The commune and school is run by Winston Blackmore, 44, who is alleged to have 30 wives and 80 children. On Friday, Utah's State Attorney appointed a special prosecutor to investigate allegations of child abuse in the 30,000-member fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, an offshoot of the Mormon Church. The fundamentalist branch is reported to have communes on the Utah-Arizona border and here in Lister, just south of Creston. Mr. Blackmore could not be reached for comment on the investigation or allegations he married several new wives last year, including a 16-year-old American identified as Lorraine Johnson. Read more


Sect leader not worried about polygamy probe
Reports of teen brides
By Robert Remington National Post Originally published September 27, 2000
The Canadian leader of a polygamous breakaway sect of the Mormon Church is not worried about a U.S. investigation into allegations of arranged marriages of underage girls to church members. "We've been investigated 49 ways under the sun," Winston Blackmore, head of the Canadian branch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, said yesterday. Utah's State Attorney last week appointed a special prosecutor to investigate reports that up to 40 underage teen brides have been wed in the past two years to church members, who live in rural enclaves on the Utah-Arizona border and here in Lister, an agricultural area near the Idaho border just south of Creston, B.C. Lenore Holm, of Colorado City, Arizona, claims that her 16-year-old daughter, Nichole, was married against Utah state law without her consent as the second wife of a 39-year-old church member with 10 children. Ms. Holm alleges her daughter was taken to Mr. Blackmore's 800-member Bountiful commune at Lister. Read more


Polygamists deny young girls forced to marry
B.C. church awash in wives: Mother claims her daughter, 16, to wed illegally
By Robert Remington National Post Originally published October 13, 2000
CALGARY - The spiritual leader of a polygamist community in British Columbia says underage girls marry members of his church, but do so legally with parental consent. "In none of these cases are these people being forced to marry anybody," says Winston Blackmore, 44, the Canadian leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Marriages of youths as young as 16 are allowed in Canada and the United States with parental consent, and as young as 15 with parental consent and the approval of a juvenile court judge. In an interview with the National Post, Mr. Blackmore denied reports a 16-year-old American girl, Nichole Holm, was married without parental consent to a church member in Utah and taken to his rural community near Lister, B.C., on the Idaho border. The Utah Attorney-General's Department also denies reports it is investigating arranged marriages of underage girls to members of the Church -- a breakaway sect of the Mormon church -- that openly practises polygamy. The fundamentalist sect has two main communities, one in Lister and another in Colorado City, Ariz., on the Utah border. Read more


Bountiful's troubling tradition
Men in this quiet B.C. community aren't limited to just one mate
By Estanislao Oziewicz The Globe and Mail Originally published December 9, 2000
Every Friday and Saturday night, the boys from Bountiful get together for a couple of hours of pickup hockey at the Johnny Bucyk Arena in nearby Creston, B.C. In the wooden bleachers one recent Friday were a handful of women with infants in their laps. Other children squealed in delight because a malfunctioning vending machine was spewing out hot chocolate for only 10 cents a cup. Pucks boomed off the boards. The women cheered and stamped their feet. The scene could be anywhere in Canada -- except that the women are all teenagers in 1940s hairdos and long, high-collar dresses. What is more, they and the hockey players all belong to the only known openly polygamous community in the country. Fuelled by a religious zeal to marry and procreate -- believed to be necessary steps on the road to heavenly salvation -- Bountiful has doubled in size to about 700 members in a decade. Even more extraordinary is that they are largely the progeny of a handful of fundamentalist Mormons who settled in Creston Valley only half a century ago. While a conjugal union with more than one person is an offence under the Criminal Code, carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison, no one in Bountiful is particularly worried about being prosecuted. Read more


13-year-old sent to B.C. for a husband
By Fabian Dawson The Province Originally published December 16, 2000
Hurricane, Utah -- Craig Chatwin said goodbye to his sister Esther Ruth shortly after her 13th birthday last year. She was getting married. "She was just a kid and was assigned to marry someone in Canada," said Chatwin, a former member of the polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Chatwin, 28, said Esther Ruth was the last of seven sisters from Colorado City, Ariz. to be assigned husbands at the Bountiful polygamous commune in Lister, B.C. "I have not seen her since," said Chatwin. "She was just a kid and they married her to a guy who was 28." Esther Ruth is among scores of teen brides whose cases are being documented to help the RCMP and U.S. authorities investigate the movement of underage girls between polygamous communities in Utah, Arizona and B.C. Read more


Bountiful, B.C.
By Daniel Woods Saturday Night Originally published August 4, 2001
It's a remote town in an idyllic valley where polygamy is the norm and the neighbours don't seem to mind. But are there darker secrets lurking within? From the remote port hill customs post on the B.C.-Idaho border, the road to Bountiful snakes east and north and east and south and east again, past fields of timothy and towering roadside cottonwoods. It's beautiful country. At the end of the meandering route, clustered beneath the Skimmerhorn Mountains, are fifty or so houses set amid well-tended gardens and pastures. Smoke from wood stoves curls from nearly every chimney. Pickup trucks are parked in driveways. The yards are manicured and full of swing sets, tricycles, and children running and shouting and laughing. The yellow buses standing beside Bountiful Elementary-Secondary School are precisely the colour of the larch that line the steep screen slopes directly above the little settlement. The mountains' jagged summits are dusted with snow. Bountiful is, to an outsider, a postcard of Bruegelian activity. The most dangerous thing around, it would seem, is the red-tailed hawk, poised on the branch of a tree. But a closer look reveals that this is a community unlike most others. A sign along the village's main road reads: "Thou Shalt Not Park Here." And straight ahead, clustered around a paved parking lot and a stand of weeping willows, sit five buildings. The two largest look more like motels than homes, with a series of doorways along both the ground and balcony floors. But homes they are. Read more


Polygamists from U.S. using B.C. as 'safe haven'
No fear of prosecution: Criminal Code offence considered unconstitutional
By Fabian Dawson National Post Originally published August 27, 2001
Vancouver -- British Columbia is becoming a "safe haven" for polygamists, prompting a coalition to press the province to enforce polygamy laws. Although polygamy is a Criminal Code offence, B.C. has decided not to enforce it, saying the law is unconstitutional. "B.C. is the only place in North America where polygamy and its associated abuses can be practised openly without fear of prosecution," said Debbie Palmer, spokeswoman for the Committee Concerned with Child Abuse in Polygamy, which is co-ordinating efforts in Canada to recriminalize polygamy in the province. "There already are polygamous families looking for a safe haven in B.C.," said Ms. Palmer, who fled the Bountiful polygamous commune in Lister, B.C., in the early '90s. Recently, one large polygamous family - the Chatwins - who lived near the Utah-Arizona border, moved to the Creston area. "They were looking for a safer place to practise what they preach," said Dee Bateman, who taught some of the Chatwin children before they moved to Creston. Ms. Palmer said other polygamous families have set up base near the B.C.-Idaho border around Bonners Ferry in Idaho. "Their children walk across the border and go to school at Bountiful," said Ms. Palmer. "The word is out there that B.C. is a safe place for polygamists." Read more


B.C. wants law changed to allow move on polygamists
By Fabian Dawson The Province Originally published February 7, 2002
The law outlawing polygamy in Canada cannot withstand a challenge under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a new review by the B.C government has confirmed. Attorney-General Geoff Plant said he has asked his officials to initiate talks with Ottawa to modify the Criminal Code before any prosecutions take place. "Faced with these legal opinions we will be seeking an amendment to the Criminal Code as that is the way we have to go," he said yesterday. In 1992, B.C. decided prosecuting polygamy was unconstitutional because it violated religious freedoms. That decision followed an RCMP investigation into two leaders of the Bountiful polygamous commune near Creston. Read more


Canadian polygamists let off the hook � again
Government says the polygamy law violates religious freedoms
By Frank Stirk christianweek.org Originally published March 5, 2002
VICTORIA, BC�The British Columbia government will continue a decade-old policy of not prosecuting polygamists, at least until the law forbidding multiple marriages has been reworded. An internal review completed last month re-affirmed the stance taken by the previous NDP administration that the statute�Section 239 of the Criminal Code�violates Charter protections of freedom of religion. "Faced with these legal opinions we will be seeking an amendment to the Criminal Code," Attorney-General Geoff Plant told Vancouver's The Province. To Rowenna Erickson, however, this refusal to enforce the law is "very disappointing." A co-founder of the Utah-based group Tapestry Against Polygamy (TAP), she says the province is ignoring the reality that women trapped in a polygamous "marriage" suffer appalling abuse. "Polygamists are every bit as bad as the Taliban in the way that they treat women," said Erickson in an interview from Salt Lake City. "They use them as property, they barter and trade them and they force them into marriages at very young ages." "Some polygamists demand that the women have a child per year," TAP executive director Vicky Prunty added. "They're breeding like little rabbits. It's just unreal how fast this type of population is growing." Other problems associated with polygamous communities are said to include child sexual abuse, incest, high levels of poverty and tax fraud. Read more


'Plural wives' allowed to immigrate
Ottawa gave residency status to polygamists despite B.C. protests
By Robert Remington National Post Originally published October 8, 2002
Acknowledging that polygamy is illegal in Canada, Denis Coderre, the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, promised yesterday to investigate why his department gave permanent Canadian residency to three polygamist wives from the United States. Mr. Coderre, in response to questions in the Commons from Diane Ablonczy, the Canadian Alliance immigration critic, said he will ask his department for a report on the 1994 case in which immigration officials in Ottawa overruled their B.C. counterparts, who sought to deny permanent status to the three women. Ottawa reportedly granted the permanent residency for three wives of Winston Blackmore, leader of a polygamist community near Creston, B.C., on humanitarian and compassionate grounds because they had children with Mr. Blackmore. They were also stepmothers to other children at the 800-member polygamist community, called Bountiful, near Lister on the B.C.-Idaho border. "The Minister knows full well that polygamy is repugnant to Canadian values in society. It very often exploits young women. Why is the Liberal government not ashamed of this action to aid and abet an illegal practice in Canada?" Ms. Ablonczy demanded. Read more


The Canadian Home of Polygamy
CBC News The Fifth Estate Original broadcast January 15, 2003
The polygamous community of Bountiful is located on the outskirts of the small town of Creston, British Columbia. The community, comprised of just over a thousand people, is tucked away in the Creston Valley under the shadow of the towering East Kootenay Mountains close to the US border. It is a secluded community where plural marriage is not only at the centre of the community's religious beliefs but it is a way of life. It's a place where some men have close to 30 wives and father up to 80 children and where teenage girls are married to men old enough to be their grandfathers. They believe that the more children a man produces, the better his chances of entering the celestial kingdom of God, finding salvation and possibly becoming a God himself. It's home to Winston Blackmore - 'The Bishop of Bountiful'. He was born and raised into the community and continues to be most powerful man in Bountiful. His first wife, Jane, says he has 26 wives and some 80 children. The men who head up the families in Bountiful make the decisions and demand that the women be demure, unobtrusive and obedient. Men rule and women are never to question their power over them. Read more


The Blackmore Family
CBC News The Fifth Estate Original broadcast January 15, 2003
For two decades Winston Blackmore was the Bishop of Bountiful, a secretive and secluded community living in the Creston Valley of British Columbia. His first wife Jane claims that he has 26 wives and some 80 children. But in an interview with Hana Gartner from the fifth estate, Mr. Blackmore didn't want to confirm any details. Hana Gartner: WELL, HOW MANY WIVES AND HOW MANY CHILDREN DO YOU HAVE THEN? Winston Blackmore: Well I'm certainly not here to talk about my private life. I have agreed to say that I have more wives than one. Read more


The Bishop of Bountiful: The Blackmore Family
CBC News The Fifth Estate Original broadcast January 15, 2003
Winston Blackmore, head of the family: The most powerful man in Bountiful, he has 26 wives and some 80 children. "I'm just a guy who wants to mind his own business and raise his family and I have a nice family by the way. And I do love my ladies by the way and I love my children." Jane Blackmore, as the first of his 26 wives Jane says she lived a privileged life and stood by Winston during their 17 years of marriage bearing him 7 of his reported 80 children. In an exclusive interview with the Fifth Estate, Jane Blackmore talks about growing up as a woman in Bountiful and reveals that she has decided to leave it all behind. "It was expected that I would be a very obedient girl and grow up and marry whom I was appointed to marry, and be a mother." Debbie Palmer, Winston Blackmore's stepmother: Raised in polygamy Debbie was only 15 when her father gave her away to a 57 year old man. She would become his 6th wife and stepmother to 32 other children. It was only after her third 'celestial marriage' that she found the courage to run from the community with her 8 children. Read more


Bishop loses Bountiful school case
By Robert Matas The Globe and Mail Originally published April 4, 2003
Vancouver -- The Canadian bishop of a polygamist religious group lost control yesterday of the community's school in British Columbia and over $1-million in assets to rivals aligned with the U.S.-based sect. The shift in power was the most recent incident in a bitter fight that has split families and neighbours in Canada and the United States over who speaks for God and who should be acknowledged as the Prophet in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A succession battle after the death last fall of Rulon Jeffs, the breakaway Mormon sect's top official, pitted Canadian Winston Blackmore against the official's son, Warren Jeffs, of Colorado City, Ariz. Mr. Justice Frank Maczko of the B.C. Supreme Court approved an order yesterday that in effect allows followers of Mr. Jeffs to control Bountiful's elementary and secondary school, located in a remote farm community near Creston in southeastern British Columbia. Read more


No multiple wives for new Canucks
By Tom Godfrey Toronto Sun Originally published June 9, 2003
Leave your other wives at home if you want to come to Canada, federal officials are warning potential immigrants. The immigration department has ordered Canadian visa officers abroad to make sure potential immigrants are not involved in polygamous marriages before they're allowed to resettle here. Immigration officials said they're concerned that hundreds of well-heeled polygamous applicants are trying to come here with two, three or four wives and their children. "The first marriage is the only one that can potentially be recognized," immigration official Nicole Gareau told visa officers in a 2002 report obtained last week under access to information legislation. "Visa officers should counsel both parties that polygamy is an offence under the Criminal Code." ILLEGAL ACT Gareau said the couple should sign a sworn statement acknowledging that polygamy is illegal in Canada and that they will live in a monogamous marriage here. Read more


B.C. women's group calls on government to stop funding polygamist school
By Camille Bains Canadian Press Originally published July 2, 2003
Vancouver -- A women's centre is outraged that the provincial Liberal government provided $632,000 in funding last year to a school at a polygamous commune in southeastern British Columbia. Debra Critchley, spokeswoman for the Vernon and District Women's Centre Society, said Wednesday that the facility uncovered the funding while reading the government's public accounts for 2001-2002. "It's shocking, mind-blowingly shocking," Critchley said of taxpayers footing the bill for a school at the Bountiful polygamous commune in Lister, B.C., near Creston. Critchley said she's also concerned about the welfare of teenage girls who are being married off to older men and then bearing several children each. Three women who sought refuge at the women's centre in recent years after escaping from the commune have said very few children are even being educated there, Critchley said. "The bottom line is, this is illegal. The entire Bountiful school is illegal and they're funding the school," she said of the government. Read more


Controversy over school in polygamous community
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Vancouver.CBC.ca Originally published July 3, 2003
VERNON, B.C. - A women's group in the Okanagan is demanding that the provincial government cut off funding to the school in the polygamous community of Bountiful, B.C. in the Creston Valley. The Ministry of Education has provided $632,000 for the Bountiful school this year. Vernon and District Women's Centre Society spokesperson Debra Critchley says she's outraged that the school continues to receive taxpayers' dollars. "A number of women that have escaped Bountiful have come forward and spoken with government. We find it particularly offensive that the school�would be funded by the government." Critchley has written a letter to Victoria expressing her concerns. But a government spokesperson says the ministry is legally obligated to fund the Bountiful school.


"Where polygamy rules"
On a B.C. commune called Bountiful, a Mormon sect keeps the world at bay
By Douglas Todd The Vancouver Sun Originally published August 26, 2003
As I drove up to the Bountiful commune, three blond boys, about age 11, spotted me. They stopped -- stunned, panic on their faces. The day was hot. The air tasted of smoke from a brush fire south of the B.C.-Idaho border. Despite the heat, the boys were wearing long jeans and dark long-sleeve shirts, because the polygamists who run this Mormon fundamentalist community forbid the exposing of bare arms and legs. The boys began scrambling up a trail to get away. They glanced furtively over their shoulders as they ran through the grass. They finally got to the top of a hill and slid under a rickety fence that surrounds Bountiful's controversial, taxpayer-funded school. An hour earlier, after trying repeatedly to reach the commune's leaders by phone, I had finally contacted the principal of Bountiful's school. Merrill Palmer told me his Canadian branch of the polygamist sect had recently developed a strict policy of refusing to speak to media. It was on the orders of the Arizona-based leader of the sect, which has more than 10,000 adherents in the U.S. and Canada. "Things are very volatile right now," the principal said. Read more


B.C. is a safe haven for polygamists
But what about the women and children?
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Saturday, May 29, 2004
Polygamy not only exists in British Columbia, the practice of keeping concubines is flourishing here. Since 1992, a parade of B.C. attorneys-general have done nothing about complaints that girls as young as 13 and 14 are being forced into polygamous marriages in Bountiful, which is near Creston, with men as much as 40 years older. They have also ignored other complaints that Canadian women and girls are being sent from Bountiful to bolster the breeding stock in polygamist colonies in the United States. They've done nothing because they believe that Canada s polygamy law is unconstitutional. This is despite a succession of federal justice ministers insisting that protections for religious freedom do not override the Criminal Code section that outlaws polygamy. The net result is polygamy's de facto legalization; legalization done without public debate and without a judge or jury. It's made B.C. a safe haven for American polygamists fleeing for fear of stepped-up prosecutions of polygamy, bigamy, child abuse and sexual assault in Utah and Arizona and afraid of the increasingly extremist views of Warren Jeffs, the new leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or FLDS. But suddenly, the government is under increasing pressure to do something about it. Read more


B.C. government does nothing while polygamists flourish:
Attorney-General Geoff Plant admits he's frustrated by the issue, but its unclear whether he sees Bountiful as a real problem
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published June 1, 2004
When election campaigns roll through the Creston Valley, aides whisper in their candidates' ears and carefully steer them away from kissing the babies held by young girls in long dresses who belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or FLDS. Neighbours talk about Winston Blackmore as a hard-working businessman with a logging company, cattle ranch and grain farm and an estimated net worth of about $15 million rather than as a polygamist with 26 wives and 80-some children. But a lot of people know that Bountiful -- population 1,000 and growing -- is a polygamy colony run by a breakaway sect of the Mormon church and is expanding thanks to Blackmore's forestry company. Nine women who have escaped Bountiful have filed a complaint with B.C. Attorney-General Geoff Plant alleging polygamy, sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of girls as young as 13. Another group of women -- including Blackmore's first wife, Jane, and her sister-in-law Deborah Palmer -- have filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. The complaint is against Plant, Education Minister Tom Christenson, Blackmore, James Oler, the current bishop, and Merrill Palmer, the principal of taxpayer-funded Bountiful Elementary-Secondary School for allegedly denying women and girls equal access to education and property rights, and co-operating in their oppression. Read more


Utah A-G declares war on polygamy:
B.C. ignores cult that is focus of attention in the U.S.
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Friday, June 4, 2004
Utah Attorney-General Mark Shurtleff grew up with evidence of polygamy all around him. He went to school with polygamists' kids and even has some polygamists in his own Mormon family background. "It was kind of an embarrassing fact of life in Utah that people just tried to ignore," says Shurtleff. No more. Despite his background, Shurtleff and the Utah government are aggressively pursuing the estimated 20,000 to 30,000 polygamists in the state. Right after Shurtleff was elected four years ago, county prosecutor David Leavitt -- brother of Gov. Michael Leavitt -- said he needed money and investigators to go after polygamists. He told the A-G that it was nearly impossible to prosecute, especially in Colorado City (population 10,000) and its twin city, Hildale. Both -- like Bountiful, B.C. -- are owned and controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints or FLDS. Everyone from the mayor to the school principal to police officers are polygamists who are unwilling to accept that it is a criminal offence to have multiple wives and that taking 13- and 14-year-old girls as wives is sexual abuse. The more Shurtleff learned, the more difficulty he had sleeping at night. Read more


Blind eye turned to forced polygamy
By Mindelle Jacobs The Edmondton Sun Originally published June 12, 2004
Canada is known throughout the world for upholding equality rights but we've got a dirty little secret in our own backyard: We turn a blind eye to polygamy. If 17-year-old Stephanie Palmer was still living in the Mormon fundamentalist commune of Bountiful, near Creston, B.C., her life would no longer be her own. "I'd definitely be married now with at least two children and another on the way," she says. Thanks to her mother Debbie's courage, however, she's living life as a normal teenager in Prince Albert, Sask. Debbie, who grew up in the polygamous sect and was married off at age 15 to the first of three husbands, fled the commune in 1988 with her eight children. "Everyone is always surprised and shocked that (forced polygamy) is happening in a free country," says Stephanie. "Every time I think about it, I'm just glad my mother left." Many others aren't so lucky, delegates at a conference on cults at the University of Alberta heard yesterday. The event, which continues over the weekend, is co-sponsored by the American Family Foundation and the Edmonton Society Against Mind Abuse. Stephanie has more than 100 step-siblings in Bountiful. Read more


A-G must eradicate the blemish of polygamy in Bountiful, B.C.
Authorities cannot continue to avoid investigating allegations of abuse of girls and women behind the shield of religion
Editorial Vancouver Sun Originally published Saturday, June 12, 2004
Canadians understandably wax indignant when we hear of polygamy, inequality and the abuse of women and girls in countries like Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. Yet we're a lot quieter when we hear of our own private Taliban, which conducts its business in Bountiful, B.C., near the Canada-U.S. border. As Vancouver Sun columnist Daphne Bramham explained in a series of recent columns, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), a breakaway sect of the Mormon church, has for years been practising polygamy with impunity in a small community near Creston. Although the Criminal Code prohibits polygamy, and although the Creston RCMP recommended in 1992 that charges be laid against members of the FLDS, successive B.C. attorneys-general have refused to prosecute on the grounds that the polygamy law would not likely withstand a Charter challenge. A number of federal attorneys-general, including our current A-G, Irwin Cotler, don't share that view, but the law does appear problematic. The primary difficulty lies in the fact that Canadian law only permits marriage between two people. If a married man chooses to marry another woman, the second marriage is null and void and the man can be prosecuted for bigamy. So it's legally impossible to be married to more than one person at a time. Men in Bountiful get around this by registering their first marriage and then marrying successive wives through their church, but not through the state. Read more


Cabinet talks a signal of hope for child brides of Bountiful:
A letter detailing abuse behind the cult's veil has spurred the attorney-general to action
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Tuesday, June 15, 2004
The message finally got through to the B.C. government -- the polygamous community of Bountiful needs to be investigated. "Some people say harm is happening and it is not right for a responsive government not to do anything," Attorney-General Geoff Plant said Monday. Plant said he decided it was the moral thing to do after he received a letter last week from a former Bountiful resident outlining the abuse suffered there. He took the letter to last week's cabinet meeting and asked the other ministers what they knew about Bountiful and what they were doing about it. Plant also asked his deputy to speak to other deputy ministers and find out what is known about Bountiful. "I'm setting the tone and using the moral authority of this office," he told me after explaining that he has no power to order a police investigation. "It is time for the government to try to figure out what to do." Read more


Tax dollars support school teaching polygamy
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Friday, June 18, 2004
There's a publicly funded school in B.C. that turns out students who believe that polygamy is a sacred commandment from God, that women can only enter heaven at the invitation of their polygamous husbands, and that brown-skinned people are descendants of Satan. It's called Bountiful Elementary-Secondary. It's run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and for nearly two decades, B.C. taxpayers have supported it with grants. Last year, the grant was $460,826. The previous year -- before a factional split resulted in 89 kids being taken out of that school and put into a new school called Mormon Hills -- it was $623,686. The new school is controlled by Winston Blackmore, the former bishop of Bountiful ex-communicated two years ago by the church's prophet, Warren Jeffs. Jeffs now controls Bountiful school and is its spiritual adviser. Mormon Hills has 131 students and now it too is eligible under the B.C. Independent School Act for per-pupil grants equal to half the amount the government pays for children attending public schools. Read more


Shut Bountiful down now and stop all public funding of private schools
Canadian Union of Public Employees www.cupe.bc.ca Originally published June 23, 2004
BURNABY, BC, June 23 /CNW/ - Barry O'Neill, President of CUPE BC is demanding that the provincial government immediately pull funding from Bountiful, the Independent school situated on a polygamous commune within School District 8, Kootenay Lake Schools. "The B.C. government must return that money to the public school system, where it belongs," says O'Neill. In addition, O'Neill is demanding a Provincial Inquiry into public funding of private and independent schools. This inquiry, he insists, must include consultation with a broad cross section of interested citizens and organizations in the province. School trustees in District 8, Kootenay Lake recently made a decision to reduce the school year by four days. The public school district is experiencing other financial problems due to the provincial government's funding formula based on student enrolment. In 2001-2002 while public school enrolment declined by 0.5% over the previous year, independent school enrolment increased by 9%. Again, in 2002-2003 while public school enrollment dropped by a further 1.3%, independent school enrollments swelled by 9.5%. "And here we have Bountiful," says O'Neill, "a so-called 'eligible' independent school, while causing so much controversy - possibly even placing children at risk - was funded to the tune of $1.1 million in the last two years." Read more


Local trustee wants school closed
By Rebecca Roberts The Interior News Originally published June 24, 2004
School Trustee Bob Haslett is not afraid to stick his nose in other people's business, as long as it means saving children from abuse, whether that be in this area's school districts or in another. After reading stories in The Vancouver Sun about a school in the Kootenay community of Bountiful, where children are reported to be sexually exploited, Haslett decided he needed to do something about it. "I've been around for 20 years as a school trustee now and I've seen a lot of things happen in British Columbia with regards to education but I've never seen anything this brutal," Haslett says. At the latest School District No. 54 meeting, he put forward a motion that the district write letters to three provincial ministries and to all school boards to garner support to put an end to the pubic funding of this school. The school in Bountiful is run by a sect of Mormons who call themselves the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Media reports say the school received over $600,000 in public funding for the 2002-03 school year and over $400,000 in public funding for the 2003-04 school year. One of Haslett's main concerns is that the school, which teaches Kindergarten to Grade 12, has never graduated a student. Read more


NDP ignored polygamy warning:
Successive governments refused to protect women and kids in Kootenay community
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Friday, June 25, 2004
If the B.C. government is serious about protecting the rights of the women and children in the polygamous Kootenay community of Bountiful, it doesn't need to waste time and money doing a study. The work was done in 1993 and the report -- Life in Bountiful: A report on the lifestyle of a polygamous community -- has been gathering dust in the library ever since. It provides the single most detailed insight into the life and beliefs of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. "The group's religious beliefs are so encompassing they have shaped a distinct culture. It is a culture that limits individual rights to the point of virtually eliminating them," it concludes. But it also poses the rhetorical question that governments have been running from ever since. "When does a culture stop being a culture and start being abuse?" Read more


Commune expands its power while B.C. plan gathers dust
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Saturday, June 26, 2004
A blueprint for how to deal with the polygamous community of Bountiful has been gathering dust on a legislative library shelf for more than a decade. The recommendations made by a government-funded committee on polygamous issues carried a warning on the cover that they were confidential and to be "circulated only as needed within the government." For whatever reasons, the people on that limited circulation list buried the report and not a single recommendation was heeded. In the 11 years since the recommendations were made, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints' population has more than doubled. Now more than 1,000 followers live in and around the Creston Valley in the east Kootenays. The leaders have prospered and have many more wives and children than in 1993. There are also many more brides and mothers in their teens. Winston Blackmore -- the bishop who was ex-communicated in a power struggle with Prophet Warren Jeffs two years ago -- now has 27 or more wives and close to 100 children. Read more


B.C. urged to charge polygamists
By Peter T. Chattaway CanadianChristianity.com Originally published July 7, 2004
SEVEN women have taken their fight against polygamy and the politicians who do nothing about it to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. In a complaint filed with the tribunal in late May, the complainants allege the Bountiful commune near Creston is part of a polygamist network in which women and children are "regarded as chattels." They also allege women there are passed from one "celestial husband" to another and girls as young as 13 are made into concubines. One complainant, Debbie Palmer, says she was given in "marriage" to a 57-year-old man when she was 15. After being assigned to two more "harems" and discovering several cases of child sexual abuse, she fled with her eight children in 1988, at the age of 32. "It's basically incest and pedophilia that's going on there, in our opinion," says Jancis Andrews of Sechelt, who has been actively lobbying the government to do something about the commune. The women also allege in their complaint that children are taught racist and sexist beliefs at a school within the commune that receives provincial funding, and that Bountiful has become a safe haven for polygamists fleeing a recent crackdown in Utah. Read more


Hunting Bountiful
Ending half a century of exploitation
From The Economist print edition Economist.com Originally published July 8, 2004
VANCOUVER - THEY like to think they do a good job protecting women's rights and fighting paedophilia. Canadians would not be so smug if they knew of the dirty little secret in the Creston Valley, in south-eastern British Columbia. For half a century, a hotbed of polygamy has quietly flourished there in a commune called Bountiful. It is run by a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church, in successful defiance of the law. Bountiful is no secret to local people, some of whom enjoy its business. Nor is it to the province's police and social workers. It is known to British Columbia's top law-enforcement officer, the attorney-general. His office was first made aware of concerns about Bountiful more than a decade ago. But the provincial government has felt constrained by an untested legal opinion that Canada's law banning polygamy was unconstitutional. Bountiful claims allegiance to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Based in Utah, this dissenting Mormon sect teaches that men must have three or more wives and as many children as possible to enter heaven. The role of women and girls is to serve men. If women disobey men, their souls will burn in hell for eternity. The commune was quietly set up in 1947, after a few men excommunicated by the mainstream Mormon Church in Utah (which banned polygamy in 1890) moved north. Today the 1,000-odd residents are almost all the progeny of half-a-dozen men. The place is dominated by the �bishop�, James Oler, and by his deposed predecessor, Winston Blackmore, who now heads a splinter group. Read more


A chilling tale of murder and Mormons
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Saturday, July 10, 2004
After writing about the deadliest season ever on Mount Everest in his best-selling book Into Thin Air, there was nothing more Jon Krakauer wanted to say about mountaineering. Instead, he turned his attention to religion and, more specifically, the Mormon Church and its followers, with whom he had grown up in Colorado. His intention to write a history of the only North American-based world religion was soon overtaken by his storyteller's love of a great story. The history is there, in Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, now available in paperback (Random House of Canada, 432 pages, $22.95). But it's woven around the tale of two brothers -- excommunicated Mormons -- who murdered their sister-in-law and her baby daughter. Read more


Investigation of Bountiful schools
John Russell, President British Columbia Civil Liberties Association Letter originally written July 14, 2004
The Honourable Gordon Campbell Premier of British Columbia Dear Mr. Campbell: I am writing on behalf of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association ("BCCLA") to urge you to initiate a full and public investigation into the community of Bountiful, B.C. The allegations against Bountiful's religious leaders that have been recently reported in the media are credible and suggest that some very serious breaches of civil liberties and human rights have been occurring for many years. Former residents and concerned citizens allege that the sect propagates child abuse, sexual exploitation, and the denial of equal access to education and property rights generally, and for women and girls in particular. The BCCLA obtained a copy of a 1993 report entitled "Life in Bountiful: A Report on the Lifestyle of a Polygamous Community" from the Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women's Services, which was completed on behalf of the former Ministry of Women's Equality. Although it has been some years since this report has been prepared, its contents corroborate recent allegations and lend support to the claim that there are on-going serious problems in Bountiful that need to be addressed by the provincial government. The BCCLA is particularly concerned about the contentions surrounding Bountiful's two schools, both of which are publicly funded and must be regularly inspected under B.C.'s Independent School Act. Critics allege that the schools' teachings are inconsistent with the provincial curriculum. The high and early dropout rates of these schools indicate that Bountiful students are not receiving an education that will allow them to function outside the community or to be knowledgeable about their rights as citizens. Read more


Religious tyrants twist tolerance for their own ends
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Saturday, July 17, 2004
What in the name of tolerance are we doing in Canada? Most thinking people can't countenance the notion that old men -- so-called religious leaders -- keep harems of women, including teens, for the purpose of breeding a pure stock. Yet for 50 years, politicians, bureaucrats and law enforcement officials haven't seen it that way when it comes to the polygamist community of Bountiful in southeastern British Columbia. For the past two decades, B.C. lawmakers and enforcement agencies have fallen back on the excuse that leaders of Bountiful's Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints can not be prosecuted for the Criminal Code offence of polygamy because the Canadian Charter of Rights guarantees religious freedom. In doing so, they've ignored evidence provided by former concubines about leaders who have as many as 80 wives, about alleged sexual exploitation of child "brides" by "husbands" two and three times their age. Read more


Civil libertarians want Bountiful inquiry:
For years, government has ignored reports of sex abuse, exploitation, denial of rights
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Wednesday, July 21, 2004
There's now more pressure on the B.C. government to find out what exactly is happening in the polygamous community of Bountiful. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has added its voice to the lobby. In a letter to Premier Gordon Campbell Tuesday, the association's president, John Russell, called for a full public investigation into every aspect of the community. For years, the B.C. government has ignored reports of sexual abuse, sexual exploitation and denial of equal rights and educational rights in the community controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Church leaders -- believed by members of the congregation to be in direct communication with God -- control almost every aspect of their followers' lives, from what they wear to whom they marry. The leaders have their pick of the community's women and girls as young as 13 as "celestial wives". They also assign concubines to men as rewards for their loyalty, and punish disloyalty by stripping men of their wives, children and property. Read more


Allegations of abuse at Bountiful commune
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Vancouver.CBC.ca Originally published July 23, 2004
VANCOUVER - An investigative team is being assembled to check out abuse allegations at the Bountiful commune near Creston. Attorney General Geoff Plant says police will look at accusations of child abuse, forcible marriage and sexual exploitation. He says there is a serious groundswell of public concern about the polygamous commune, which is part of a breakaway Mormon sect. Plant told police it's a significant priority after he received a first-hand account from a woman who claims she was victimized at Bountiful. A social worker and a dedicated prosecutor will likely assist the police team. Debbie Palmer, who at 15 was assigned to be the sixth Bountiful bride of a 55-year-old man, says the attorney general's announcement is overdue. She claims underage girls have been trafficked across the border and impregnated by men in positions of power.


Police team to probe polygamous B.C. town:
Investigators assembled to study alleged sexual abuses in Bountiful
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Friday, July 23, 2004
The RCMP is assembling a team to investigate allegations of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation in the polygamous community of Bountiful in southeastern British Columbia. "Police are still working on the details of what the investigative team might look like," Attorney-General Geoff Plant said Thursday. "But the message that they've got is that what will not be satisfactory is to ask the local detachment commander to add another file to somebody who is already doing 100 other things." Plant is also committed to doing what he can to ensure that a dedicated Crown prosecutor is assigned to work with police. Bountiful is controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints -- a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church. For two decades, women who have escaped from the community have complained of sexual abuse, the assigning of teenaged girls as concubines (so-called "celestial wives"), the high incidence of teenage mothers, and a birth rate far above the national average. There have also been allegations that the government-supported Bountiful Elementary-Secondary School has a dropout rate far in excess of that in other provincial schools, that the students are taught blind obedience to church leaders and that their religious curriculum is racist, white-supremacist and discriminates against women. Read more


Police to investigate B.C. polygamous commune over abuse allegations
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation CBC.ca Originally published July 23, 2004
VANCOUVER - A team is being assembled to investigate abuse allegations at the polygamous Bountiful commune, nestled in the B.C. Kootenay mountain range. The province's Attorney General Geoff Plant said, the government finally has enough information to launch a criminal probe which will look at accusations of child abuse, forcible marriage and sexual exploitation. A social worker and a dedicated prosecutor will likely assist the police team. Plant said it's been difficult to investigate Bountiful's religious leaders because of constitutional rights to freedom of religion, and the basic question of whether polygamy is even against the law in Canada. What moved Plant to action was a confession from a former commune resident who claims she was victimized at the 47-year-old commune. "That direct complaint allowed me to take a step beyond my traditional role, to raise the issue with my cabinet colleagues," said Plant. Debbie Palmer, who at 15 was assigned to be the sixth Bountiful bride of a 55-year-old man, says the attorney general's announcement is overdue. She claims underage girls have been trafficked across the border and impregnated by men in positions of power. According to Canada's Criminal Code, sex with young brides constitutes statutory rape. Read more


Commune cop probe welcomed
By Melissa Ridgen Calgary Sun Originally published July 24, 2004
It's about time the B.C. government launched an investigation into allegations of child abuse at the polygamous Bountiful commune, says the mayor of nearby Creston. Joe Snopek is friends with several of the 1,000 people who live at the commune. But he feels it's time for the government to act on the complaints. "It's probably time the government decides one way or the other on the lifestyle they live," Snopek said. "I doubt anything will come of it though because the argument of religious freedom is there to be made." He counts deposed Bountiful leader Winston Blackmore -- who reportedly has 28 wives and 80 children -- as a friend and said the residents are "great people" who keep to themselves and pose no problem. "They aren't in our courts, their children are well-behaved. They do business here," said Snopek. Read more


Vulnerability fears for B.C. sect
By Melissa Ridgen Calgary Sun Originally published July, 25, 2004
The B.C. government needs to "set up a tight social safety net" for the women and children of a polygamist commune being investigated for allegations of child abuse, says a woman who heads an anti-polygamy group. Nancy Mereska, co-ordinator of Stop Polygamy in Canada, said if charges are laid against members of the 1,000-person Bountiful commune near Creston, B.C., women and their children will be vulnerable. "They'll need shelter, the necessities of life, counselling, education and health support, and most importantly, legal support," said Mereska, who has long lobbied the B.C. government to investigate alleged abuses in the community, located 520 km southwest of Calgary. Commune residents believe men need multiple wives and numerous children to get to heaven, she said. The community is part of the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon breakaway sect. Mereska was a Mormon for 20 years, but separated from the church and her husband in 1985. She has been a long-time opponent of polygamy. And, Mereska applauds the B.C. government's announcement last week that Bountiful will be the subject of a police investigation. "The women in polygamist marriages are second-class citizens whose sole purpose is to be a walking womb. If they don't want to live this lifestyle or they disobey their husband, they're told they'll go to hell," Mereska said. James Oler, leader of Bountiful, didn't return phone calls yesterday.


Sect greets abuse probe
Polygamist leader says group will co-operate
By Mike D'Amour Calgary Sun Originally published July 27, 2004
CRESTON, B.C. -- Stating he has nothing to hide, the spiritual leader of a polygamist sect says he will not hamper an investigation into alleged acts of sexual exploitation, forced marriage and child abuse by his group. In a rare interview, Winston Blackmore told the Calgary Sun he welcomes a just-announced investigation by B.C.'s attorney general into the sexual and marriage practices of the Mormon fundamentalist church. Blackmore, while admitting he has up to 20 wives, says his community -- part of a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church -- is doing nothing wrong. "I urge the attorney general to come see us and (he) will find co-operation in the investigation," said Blackmore, who is leader to about half the roughly 1,000 residents of Bountiful, just outside Creston, about 520 km southwest of Calgary. B.C.'s attorney general, Geoff Plant, announced last week a special police task force made up of Mounties, a social worker and a dedicated prosecutor will look into the allegations. "All of these are crimes that need to be investigated that don't relate to polygamy," said Plant. This province's top law man said he's taking action because he received a first-hand account from a woman who alleges she was a victim in Bountiful and because of a "serious groundswell of public concern." However, Blackmore said the scrutiny is nothing new. "(The authorities) did this in 1990 and there was three police officers there who wouldn't even let me go to the bathroom by myself," he said. "They were trying to prove I had more than one wife so I said, 'Right, I do, now go away.'" Read more


B.C. to investigate polygamous commune
By Frank Stirk CanadianChristianity.com Originally published July 28, 2004
Mounting public pressure appears to have finally persuaded the British Columbia government to abandon its hands-off attitude toward Bountiful, a polygamous commune near Cranbrook in the southeastern Interior. Attorney-General Geoff Plant announced recently that a task force of RCMP officers, a social worker and a dedicated prosecutor is being assembled that will investigate widespread allegations that women and teenaged girls in the commune are being sexually abused and sexual exploited. "The groundswell of public concern has reached a point where government and the police, in my view, have an obligation to act," Plant told the Toronto Star. "It's a priority to investigate the many allegations being made." The commune, which was founded in the late 1940s, is controlled by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a splinter group from mainstream Mormonism that still practices polygamy as part of its religion. Women who have escaped this male-dominated lifestyle say the results are devastating. They allege rampant sexual abuse, the forced "marriages" of teenaged girls as so-called "celestial wives," high rates of teenaged pregnancies, and a birth rate well above the national average. Read more


Commune leader slammed by priest
By Mike D'Amour Calgary Sun Originally published July 28, 2004
Creston, B.C. -- Winston Blackmore may be the spiritual leader of a group of polygamists, but he is no part of a legitimate religion, says a high priest of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "(Blackmore) has false and foolish notions about polygamy," Wayne Bourne said, referring to the man in a Sun story yesterday who has at least 20 wives and numerous children. "Winston Blackmore's religion has as much to do with the Church of Latter-day Saints as Martin Luther has to do with Catholicism." Polygamy was outlawed by the Mormon church in the late 1800s and Blackmore's grandfather, John Blackmore, was kicked out of the church for refusing to bow to the rule. Winston was excommunicated from the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-day Saints -- along with about 500 men, women and children -- for his beliefs and practices in Bountifulnear Creston, 520 km of southwest of Calgary. Blackmore and his followers are under the scrutiny of a B.C. law enforcement task force looking into allegations of sexual exploitation, forced marriage and child abuse in Bountiful.


Polygamists defend lifestyle
Commune and town of Creston co-exist in a delicate economic balance
By Mike D'Amour Calgary Sun Originally published August 1, 2004
CRESTON, B.C -- Winston K. Blackmore has 26 wives. Or 27, 29 or even more depending on who's telling the story. The 47-year-old polygamist himself would only allow he had "less than 20," a number sneered at as low by those who claim inside knowledge of Blackmore's affairs. "Having more than one wife is totally normal," argued Blackmore, who reckons he has between "30 and 40" brothers and sisters through different relationships his dad had with wives, or "sister-wives," as they call each other. "I'm a product of this religion and this is my lifestyle." Until recently, Blackmore -- self-proclaimed Bishop of Bountiful, a community of about 1,000 just south of Creston, B.C. -- was near omnipotent. The man, rumoured to have at least 30 wives and more than 100 kids, was chief executive officer of all Bountiful's business interests and trustee of 320 hectares of property. He controlled all the cash and most aspects of the lives of his Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) followers, which is not connected to the mainstream Mormon Church. However, his power has been weakened in the beautiful little community sandwiched between lush fruit orchards and the face of the Skimmerhorn Mountains. The polygamist society has been ripped in two, divided by a bitter leadership fight that split families and pit neighbour against neighbour in Canada and the U.S. Read more


Cloistered wives of B.C. polygamous colony plan public relations campaign
By Amy Carmichael Calgary Sun Originally published August 5, 2004
VANCOUVER (CP) - The usually cloistered wives in a B.C. polygamous colony are organizing a public relations campaign to defend their lifestyle as the government prepares to investigate decades old claims of abuse in the community. Marlene Palmer, 45, is a mother of six children and is married to a man who has taken several wives in the Interior town of Bountiful, B.C. She said Thursday she's sick of being demonized and so are her intensely private sister wives. "We're all going to meet on Saturday to decide what we want to say and write a press release," she said. Some women who have fled Bountiful charge that these women are brainwashed, sexually abused, married off as young as 14 and trafficked to communes in the United States. Rarely do they speak out about their male-dominated society. Read more


Investigation into commune overdue: Sask. woman
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation CBC.ca Originally published August 6, 2004
PRINCE ALBERT � A woman living in Saskatchewan says an upcoming investigation into a polygamous community in B.C. is long overdue. Debbie Palmer says she escaped from a fundamentalist church in the small town of Bountiful 15 years ago. For the past decade she has lived in Prince Albert. Palmer says when she was 15 she was forced to marry a 54-year-old man who already had five other wives. She says she came to Prince Albert to get away from her past. But now that the police are about to investigate the church, she wants them to get it right. Palmer hopes that RCMP will access the research and information she's collected before they begin investigating in Bountiful. She says if the investigation is too aggressive, the church would go underground. And that, she says, could put them even further out of the spotlight. Police in B.C. agree the inquiry must be done delicately. Read more


The many wives of Bountiful
B.C.'s Attorney-General probing sect's polygamy, alleged trafficking of teenage girls to U.S.
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published August 7, 2004
BOUNTIFUL, B.C. - No one in this polygamous community disputes that most of its first-time mothers are younger than 18. Nobody disputes that the fathers are often three or four times older than the mothers. Nobody disputes that many are the "plural wives" of men much older than them. These things are not disputed, because the fathers sign their names on birth-registry forms sent to the provincial government. But Marlene Palmer, a plural wife and the most outspoken defender of Bountiful's way of life, disputes the allegations that the women and girls do not have a choice about becoming "celestial wives" in their teens. Those accusations have sparked an investigation by B.C.'s Attorney-General, which began last month. "Women and girls do get to choose who they marry," Ms. Palmer says. "Most are 17, 18 and some are as old as 20 when they get married. There have been some who are 16 and occasionally some who are 15 ... But they never marry without their parents' permission." Read more


A house divided:
The fragile peace in the polygamous community of Bountiful in B.C. may soon be shattered with the arrival of a rival religious leader's bodyguard
By Daphne Bramham Edmonton Journal Originally published Sunday, August 15, 2004
VANCOUVER -- Last week, Canada Customs officers searched the car of an American driving across the border between Idaho and British Columbia. The man is known to customs officials, says Jennifer Leenhouts, chair of the Canada Employment and Immigration Union's women's committee. He is a bodyguard to Warren Jeffs, the new prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Jeffs was already at the polygamous FLDS community of Bountiful, near Creston in southeastern British Columbia. What the officers found in the bodyguard's vehicle were ammunition clips -- but no ammunition -- for a semi-automatic assault weapon and some rifle shells. Because they did not find semi-automatic weapons or any other guns and because the man's papers were in order, he was allowed to enter Canada. Within the last two weeks, two "brides" -- polygamous "wives" -- from Bountiful went to the United States to live with their American husbands. An unknown number of others were turned back at the U.S. border after they failed to produce proper documentation. The brides were assigned to their husbands by Jeffs during his visit. Read more


U.S. officials probe men who run Bountiful school
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Friday, August 27, 2004
The society that runs the government-funded school in Bountiful is controlled by the same polygamist church leaders who are being investigated by Arizona's auditor-general for misusing state education grants. The investigation was prompted by newspaper reports that the school district had used state funds to purchase a $220,000 US Cessna 210 aircraft. Arizona investigators are also trying to find out why there are 104 staff and only 289 students. That three-to-one ratio of students to staff is in contrast to other Arizona school districts where the ratios range from 10:1 to 25:1. Because school officials have refused to file proper expense reports, the Arizona superintendent of education confirmed this week that it may withhold 10 per cent of the annual $4 million US it gives the district in grants. Meanwhile, in B.C. it appears it is business as usual, with taxpayers' money continuing to flow into the polygamous community of Bountiful even though the government says it is investigating every aspect of the fundamentalist Mormons. The investigation stems from complaints to Attorney-General Geoff Plant about the failure to prosecute polygamists and complaints to other ministers and to the human rights tribunal on a wide variety of issues, including denial of equal educational opportunities for boys and girls. The quality of the education at Bountiful school is also an issue, stemming from former bishop Winston Blackmore's sworn affidavit to the B.C. Supreme Court that audio tapes played for students at Bountiful school children teach that "negros (sic) came from a war in heaven and they were turned into negros because they were fence-sitters and would not choose sides." Read more


Rights tribunal agrees to hear polygamy case
Four ministries accused of failing to protect the girls and women of Bountiful
By Jim Beatty Vancouver Sun Originally published Saturday, September 4, 2004
VICTORIA - The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal has agreed to hear a case alleging the provincial government allowed discrimination to flourish in the polygamous community of Bountiful, The Vancouver Sun has learned. Four government ministries are being accused of failing to protect girls and women from abusive practices in the well-known commune, located near the southeastern B.C. community of Creston. The allegations, made by eight women, only one of whom lived in Bountiful, say the government was wilfully blind to polygamy, discriminatory education practices and religious indoctrination. Former Bountiful resident Debbie Palmer, one of the complainants, said the B.C. government has failed to live up to its responsibilities. "There is no other community that I know of in Canada where teachers and elders and heads of companies and bishops can take underage female children and impregnate them and get away with it," she said in an interview Friday. "It is blatant abuse. The ministries of the government aren't going to waffle for another decade." Read more


Bountiful seeks cash
Commune must pass test
By Ethan Baron Calgary Sun Originally published September 6, 2004
VANCOUVER -- Another school in the Bountiful, B.C., polygamous commune has applied for public funding and will receive about $450,000 per school year if it passes inspection this fall. The Mormon Hills school has run for a year as a Group 3 unfunded independent school, qualifying it to apply for Group 1 funding, which is equivalent to half of what regular public schools receive. Bountiful Elementary-Secondary, the other school in the community located 520 km southwest of Calgary, received $460,826 in public funds for its 136 students last year. Mormon Hills school was created as a result of a schism in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon splinter group that runs the commune. Former "Bishop of Bountiful" Winston Blackmore was ex-communicated by church "prophet" Warren Jeffs, whose followers control Bountiful Elementary-Secondary. The Blackmore-controlled 131-pupil Mormon Hills school would start receiving public money at the end of January, said education ministry spokeswoman Corinna Filion. Critics charge that both schools indoctrinate children with beliefs in polygamy and the inferiority of females, and teach students that church leaders have the right to control who goes how far in school, and what jobs young people can take afterward. Read more


Mother fears sect's hold over daughter
Fundamentalist group from Bountiful, B.C., is building an isolated compound in Texas
By Jane Armstrong The Globe and Mail Originally published Thursday September 30, 2004
VANCOUVER -- Susie Johnson had been missing more than a month when the young woman called home to Canada to talk with her worried mother, Jane Blackmore. She was all right and God was blessing her, Ms. Johnson said, and she was begging Ms. Blackmore to stop tracking her down. But Ms. Blackmore could hear the strain in her daughter's voice. Finally, the young woman said: "Mother, my time is up. I have to go now." Her husband, Ben Johnson, got on the line and warned his mother-in-law that God did not want her to find Ms. Johnson and their three young sons. It wasn't the first time Ms. Johnson, 23, had been spirited away in the name of God. Born into the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or FLDS, a breakaway Mormon offshoot in Bountiful, B.C., Susie was taken by her father at age 17 to Salt Lake City, Utah, to marry Mr. Johnson, a man she was introduced to just five minutes before the ceremony. Read more


B.C. woman fears for daughter in polygamist sect
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation CBC.ca Originally published September 30, 2004
CRANBROOK, B.C. - A distraught Cranbrook, B.C., woman has asked police to help her find her daughter, a member of a controversial, polygamist Mormon sect with whom she has lost contact. Jane Blackmore has filed a missing persons report with police, saying 23-year-old Susie has broken off contact with her, and officials of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints won't tell her where her daughter is. Her report comes as B.C. police prepare to probe allegations of sexual abuse and white supremacist teachings at the sect's Canadian site in Bountiful, B.C. Several families in the U.S. have raised similar concerns about missing children, and the group's leader Warren Jeffs faces two lawsuits in Utah, the sect's other base. In one he's accused of ritualistically sodomizing a young boy; in the other, teenage boys accuse him of evicting them from the community. Blackmore was a member of the breakaway sect, but left the Bountiful compound three years ago when she began to question the faith. Since then she had been in regular touch with Susie, who lived with her three children and husband in one of the Utah communities. But the family moved without warning. When Blackmore called church officials in Utah to find Susie, they refused to reveal her whereabouts, saying only she's fine, and was doing God's work. "I'm concerned because I feel like she's being coerced and not being allowed to talk to me," Blackmore said. Read more


FIGHTING BREAKS OUT IN POLYGAMOUS COMMUNITIES
From Ellen Ramsay in Canada National Secular Society Originally published October 8, 2004
Following on from my last article on the polygamous community in Bountiful, Canada, the situation in the commune has escalated into dangerous warfare between two rival leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In an excellent piece of investigative journalism, Vancouver Sun columnist Daphne Bramham describes a fight between self-proclaimed prophets Winston Blackmore of the Bountiful commune and Warren Jeffs of the Utah commune in the United States. In an apparent escalation of a power conflict between the two leaders, a body guard of Warren Jeffs was stopped at the Canadian customs and revealed to be carrying ammunition clips for a semi-automatic assault weapon. As he didn�t actually have any live ammunition, Canada Customs (foolishly) allowed him entry into Canada even though his employer is a well known polygamous trafficker and has been in hiding to avoid being served papers from a lawsuit which alleges he sodomized his nephew in the church school. The internecine fight between Jeffs and Blackmore has sparked a rush of "assigned wives" across the U.S./Canada border as the two men line up their supporters for a stand off. Read more


Cult's women slam Bountiful critics
By Amy Carmichael The Globe and Mail Originally published October 11, 2004
Vancouver -- In a huffy note hammered onto the town message board, women from a B.C. polygamous commune have announced they would be "setting the record straight" about abuse they have allegedly been subjected to. The public notice lashes out against an equal rights group convinced that the women of Bountiful, B.C., have been brainwashed and need to be saved from their husbands. Eight women living across the province launched a complaint with the human rights tribunal on behalf of their allegedly enslaved sisters who are part of a breakaway Mormon sect in southeastern British Columbia. One is former colony member Debbie Palmer who says she suffered physical abuse at the commune, was married off at 15 and had seven children by three different men she was assigned to marry. The complaint accuses the government of failing to protect girls in Bountiful from an oppressive culture. Under the tribunal process, the complainants were required to plaster the town with notices explaining what they were doing and asking women to come forward with their stories. Read more


Women deny abuse in polygamous British Columbia town
The Associated Press Seattle Post-Intelligencer Originally published Tuesday, October 12, 2004
BOUNTIFUL, British Columbia -- In a note on the town message board, women from a polygamous commune are vigorously disputing claims that they have been abused. The notice in this southeastern British Columbia town lashed out against an equal rights group that believes women in the commune have been brainwashed by abusive husbands. Eight women from across the province have filed a complaint with the human rights tribunal on behalf of women in a breakaway Mormon sect, accusing four provincial ministers of gross dereliction of duty. The complaint accused the provincial government of failing to protect girls in Bountiful from an oppressive culture. According to the complaint, top government officials knew girls in Bountiful were "being denied an education, pulled out of class to become concubines in harems, denied birth control and having motherhood forced upon them." It also says the community school preached racism and sexism by teaching students, for example, that "females must obey males or their souls will burn forever in Hell." Read more


Alleged polygamists scrutinized
By Mike Weland Kootenai Valley Press Originally published October 26, 2004
You won�t find it on any map, but the community of Bountiful, said to hold over a thousand people, has been much on the minds of area residents. Located between the U.S. border and Creston, the community is purported to be comprised of a group of polygamists with ties to Boundary County and Utah. But the group, if it exists, remains shadowy and little is known about them, except that reports of sexual abuse are common. At a recent candidates forum, Sheriff Greg Sprungl, who is running against challengers Kevin McDonald and Geoff Palmer, announced openly that the Boundary County Sheriffs Office was taking the reports seriously and was actively investigating them. Not long after the announcement, however, the group under investigation allegedly disappeared. Read more


Polygamist Community Raises Concern in Canada
John Hollenhorst reporting KSL TV News Channel 5 Originally broadcast November 8, 2004
There's a rising chorus of concern in Canada over a thriving polygamist community. Robert Fowler/Creston, BC, Canada: "I've seen quite a few young girls that are married, and have kids, that have got to be-- I'm guessing 13, 14. Not very old." And there are allegations underage brides are being smuggled across the border from a related community on the Utah-Arizona border. Teenage brides, sexual abuse, religious fanaticism. It sounds like Colorado City. But the same issues swirl around a related community just north of Idaho, in British Columbia. Bountiful, British Columbia is in a breathtaking setting at the foot of the majestic Canadian Rockies. The people are secretive. Two residents who asked us to leave a private road say they just want to be left alone to practice their religion. Duane Palmer/ Bountiful resident: "Well our fundamental beliefs are following after the teachings of Joseph Smith, Book of Mormon. That's what's important to us." In the nearby town of Creston, British Columbia, there's growing agitation. These women organized a reform group. Linda Price/ Creston Resident: "Yes, it really shocks me that the young girls are married so young." Read more


Polygamists Torn Apart by Divided Leadership
John Hollenhorst Reporting KSL TV News Channel 5 Originally broadcast November 9, 2004
A leadership change in the nation's largest polygamy group has set off shock waves and after-effects in several states. And far away in Canada, it's created a deep division that critics say is driven by a history of tyranny and brainwashing. Bountiful, British Columbia is a town divided. Polygamists here are torn apart by a leadership crisis a thousand miles away. For many years, Bountiful was loyal to the prophet of the Fundamentalist LDS Church, Rulon Jeffs in Colorado City. Winston Blackmore, the Bishop of Bountiful, was his right-hand man in Canada. But as Jeffs became enfeebled by old age, his son Warren rose to power. He ousted Blackmore and replaced him with Jimmy Oler. When his father died two years ago, Warren Jeffs had a firm grip on power. But many Bountiful residents stayed loyal to Blackmore. Duane Palmer, Bountiful Resident: "Well we�re not going anywhere. We�re going in a separate direction. We�re sticking to our fundamental beliefs." The Bountiful community is split now: two leaders, two schools, two meeting halls. Read more


Leaving Bountiful
A rare, intimate interview with the rebellious first wife of the polygamous B.C. Mormon community�s longtime leader.
By Amanda Euringer The Tyee - Vancouver, BC Originally published November 18, 2004
The community of Bountiful has nestled uncomfortably a dozen kilometres southeast of picturesque Creston for more than 50 years. For most of that time, it was Jane Blackmore�s home. Her father, who had six wives and 47 children, was one of Bountiful�s founders. Jane became the first wife of the polygamist Mormon community�s longtime leader, Winston Blackmore. The residents of Creston and neighbouring Cranbrook are accustomed to seeing Bountiful�s residents with their peasant-style clothing and reserved ways. But they hardly know them. Until this summer, when seven women from Bountiful, including Jane Blackmore, filed a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, the community remained largely and successfully insular. The provincial government is now investigating the women�s complaints. Allegations of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse � vigorously denied by the community�s leaders � have circulated for years. In 1992, RCMP even recommended charges against community leaders, based on evidence provided by a former resident, but Crown prosecutors chose not to proceed. Read more


Rift in FLDS Church raises local fears
By Mike Weland Kootenai Valley Press Originally published November 24, 2004
With the grim specter of the Aryan Nations so recently erased from North Idaho, there is new fear of an equally rabid "religion" gaining a foothold in Boundary County following a rift in the leadership of the Fundamental Latter Day Saints, or FLDS, which is reportedly bringing massive instability to a sect that has remained secretively in the background for decades. The FLDS has existed in a small, closed enclave called Bountiful near Creston since the 1940s, when four families moved there from Alberta. Since then, the local group has grown to over 1,000 people, formerly led by "Bishop" Winston Blackmore, who openly espouses the practice of polygamy as the path to Heaven and who led the only openly polygamous community in the U.S. or Canada. But the main body of the FLDS Church was located in the arid south, where an estimated 10,000 adherents now dwell in several communities. In 1998, former "prophet" Rulon Jeffs died, and his son, Warren Jeffs, became the group�s spiritual leader, and those who�ve studied the group say his actions since are truly frightening. "Warren Jeffs is a tyrant and a coward," said Sam Brower, an investigator who has been working to crack through the wall of secrecy surrounding the FLDS. Read more


Pressure being applied to break FLDS silence
By Mike Weland Kootenai Valley Press News Originally published December 7, 2004
Teachers in Creston have called upon their federation to request a full investigation of the community of Bountiful, British Columbia, and a judge in the United States has ordered that notices be published in newspapers in Creston, St. George, Utah, Eldorado, Texas, and Cortez, Colorado in an effort to bring Warren Jeffs, the leader and "prophet" of the Fundamental Latter Day Saints, to court to face sexual abuse charges leveled by his nephew. In late October, Jinny Sims, Vancouver, B.C., president of the British Columbia Teacher�s Federation, Vancouver, sent a letter to British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell urging a full investigation by multiple agencies over concerns regarding the education of FLDS children at two private, church run schools near Creston. Under Canadian law, even private schools receive public funds, but they are expected to provide a complete education under Canada�s Independent School Act. Only one of the two schools receives funding, the other operates illegally on a tract of farmland, and the church is reported to be working toward education ministry approval for funding. "Government grants have not been terminated, nor has the school be ordered to shut down," Sims wrote. The Bountiful Elementary-Secondary School has benefited from nearly $5.5-million in public funds in the two decades its been in existence, last year receiving $460,826 from the Ministry of Education. In the letter, Sims writes, "Serious allegations regarding this community have been raised on several occasions, yet your government has not taken any definitive action." Read more


The battle for Bountiful
Religion; Polygamy, radicalism and a fight for hearts and minds: a Mormon sect's power struggle
By Ken MacQueen Macleans Magazine Originally published December 13, 2004
Trouble brews in Bountiful, a community of fundamentalist Mormons scattered about the rolling valley lands south of Creston, B.C., a town best known for its popular Kokanee beer. The commune's founders moved almost 60 years ago from Alberta, seeking the splendid isolation of the Kootenay Mountains to live "the Principle" -- the practice of polygamy. The belief that men must accumulate "plural wives" to achieve salvation is a central tenet of their faith. It estranged them and thousands more in the United States from the mainstream Mormon Church, which ended the practice in 1890. Polygamy also violates laws in both Canada and the U.S. Still, the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), to which all of Bountiful's estimated 1,000 fundamentalists once belonged, has grown into a multi-million-dollar corporation, with about 10,000 members in the church-controlled twin cities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., and mysterious new enclaves under construction in Texas and Colorado. But the fundamentalists also inhabit a world of legal trouble. Allegations of child abuse, forced marriages of underage girls, and of trafficking "wives" across the Canada-U.S. border have triggered investigations in B.C. and Utah. And Bountiful is also torn by a battle for spiritual and economic control between two powerful men, each claiming the loyalty of about half of the commune's members. Read more


Bountiful schools get public funds, but government scrutiny is suspect
By Daphne Bramham Vancouver Sun Originally published Wednesday, December 15, 2004
B.C. Education Minister Tom Christensen says it's not okay to teach polygamy to school children. Polygamy, he says, is a criminal code offence and it would be wrong to teach that in schools. What he doesn't mention is that every B.C. government since 1992 has refused to prosecute polygamy, fearing that the federal law might not withstand a constitutional challenge -- a decision that has unofficially legalized the practice here. But then Christensen and the B.C. government have just decided to put their blessing on a second fundamentalist Mormon school in the polygamous community of Bountiful in southeastern B.C. This year the government will hand over $867,000 to two fundamentalist Mormon schools -- $363,000 to the new Mormon Hills School and $504,000 to Bountiful Elementary-Secondary School. "There's no evidence that that [polygamy] is being taught in the schools and that is part of the challenge -- distinguishing what is happening in the schools and what is going on in the community," Christensen said Tuesday after releasing reports from inspections