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
 
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.

The complaints say that FLDS teaches that anyone who doesn't believe in polygamy will burn in Hell for eternity and that the sole duties of women and girls are to be obedient to men and to bear children.

The complaints also allege that women and girls are traded between Bountiful and the FLDS colonies in Utah and Colorado City and Hilford, Ariz., to improve the breeding stock.

It's not surprising that Attorney-General Geoff Plant isn't keen to talk about Bountiful.

Plant believes Canada's polygamy law would be struck down in court because of the constitutional guarantees of religious freedom. For decades, that's been the official view in B.C. even though a succession of federal justice ministers have been convinced it would withstand a Charter of Rights challenge.

But it's the reason crown prosecutors declined to lay charges in 1992 even though Creston RCMP had investigated and recommended charges against some of Bountiful's leaders.

Plant calls it a "frustrating file," but concern for Bountiful's women and children is not among the frustrations he mentions.

He's frustrated that Ottawa won't rewrite the polygamy law to satisfy B.C. And he's frustrated about the "tremendous ignorance" about his institutional responsibility, adding that it's not his job to initiate criminal investigations and prosecutions.

However, let's assume that Plant is correct that a case against a polygamist is doomed to failure. Let's even set it aside from the greater complaint about alleged sexual abuse and human rights violations.

Still Plant doesn't seem very interested in helping the victims of Bountiful even though he agrees that it's difficult even for women raised within the mainstream culture to go to police with evidence against family members, particularly when the offences involve sex.

How realistic is his advice to Bountiful's women to go to the police when these women and children have been raised to believe that outsiders are evil, monogamy is a sin and church leaders speak directly to God?

How realistic is it when these women and children have already left everything familiar behind and are attempting to start a new life with no place to live, no marketable skills, no money to live on or fight a custody battle for their children?

Plant admits some coordination across government ministries might help, but he expressed no interest in doing anything about it. This is, after all, a province that recently cut funds for safe houses and youth services.

In fact, only once did Plant express any concern for the women and children in Bountiful. I asked what he thought of allegations that church elders keep women and teens as concubines and ship them from Bountiful to other polygamist colonies in the United States.

"I think child abuse is a scourge and transporting women and children across the border to forcibly confine them should not be allowed to happen," he said.

But then it's not even clear that he thinks Bountiful is a problem.

"The question is whether the acts warrant an investigation and prosecution. Criminals are not just convicted on the basis of what the fifth estate shows," he says, referring to a recent CBC television documentary on Bountiful.

I can understand Plant's reluctance to challenge the polygamy law and not wanting to be the guy blamed for the law being struck down.

But I don't understand why he and the government are not doing everything possible to investigate the alleged abuse of women and girls, even if it is under the guise of religion.
 
Vancouver Sun
Originally published June 1, 2004
 
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