Aug 18, 2014

Chris Selley: Why did it take so long to address Bountiful’s horror stories?

National Post
Chris Selley
August 15, 2014

Reasonable people disagree on whether polygamy should be illegal in Canada. With Wednesday’s announcement that Winston Blackmore and Jim Oler, the former and current bishops of Bountiful, B.C., again face charges under Section 293 of the Criminal Code — which prohibits all forms of multiple marriage — that debate will likely reignite. But everyone agrees, I imagine, that the mere existence of polygamous households and communities is far less an affront to Canadian society than the harmful practices generally associated with them: Most serious is the ghastly trifecta of child trafficking, sexual abuse and forced marriage, although abandoning surplus young males along the sides of highways isn’t great either.

Can polygamy exist without those harms? We spent years debating that. Could Section 293 withstand a Charter challenge? B.C. authorities spent years averting their eyes from Bountiful, for fear it wouldn’t (at which point human civilization would draw quickly to a close, they seemed to believe). At long last, the government asked the B.C. Supreme Court for its opinion on the matter, and in 2011 it ruled Section 293 was indeed constitutional. And so here we are: Messrs. Blackmore and Oler face up to five years in the hoosegow for their multi-wife lifestyles. Hurray for us. It only took decades.

But while the polygamy charges hogged Thursday’s headlines, Mr. Oler and two others face far more serious charges: “the unlawful removal of children under the age of 16 years from Canada with the intention that an act be committed outside Canada that would be an offence against section 151 (sexual interference) or 152 (invitation to sexual touching) of the Criminal Code,” to quote the B.C. Criminal Justice Branch press release.

To quote the release further: These charges “are based primarily on new information that came to light as a result of investigations that unfolded in the United States.”

Indeed, while Canadian authorities wrung their hands over what to do about polygamy, American authorities got (relatively) busy policing the harms associated with it: For having arranged a marriage between a 19-year-old and a 14-year-old, Warren Jeffs, the self-styled prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter Day Saints — of which the residents of Bountiful are adherents — was convicted as an accessory to rape. (Though that conviction was later overturned on a technicality, he’s now serving a life sentence in Texas for raping two children all by himself.)

That 14-year-old, Elissa Wall, has written movingly about her ordeal. And many former residents of Bountiful have given similar testimonies. Mr. Blackmore has freely admitted that many of his 26 wives “married” him before they were 18. More than 10 years ago, he told CBC’s The Fifth Estate that 15-year-old girls in Bountiful were marrying — though he said he disapproved. Less self-interested parties, such as former resident Jane Blackmore, have insisted children as young as 14 were being married off. Needless to say, fundamentalist Mormon marriages are not known for being freely entered into: Women are typically “assigned” a husband by religious leaders.

So that’s what we knew was going on, for years, in Canada. Where were the charges? When he was B.C. attorney-general, Wally Oppal once explained to me that charges wouldn’t hold up because the girls and women would insist sexual activity had been consensual. Somewhat incredulous, I asked whether much older men in a closed religious community — the bishops themselves, at least — wouldn’t constitute figures of “trust or authority,” in which case the age of consent would be 18. He pooh-poohed the notion, to my amazement.

Even then, that wasn’t the only way to go after the harms associated with polygamy — one of which, as we see from this week’s charges, is the shipping of girls from Canadian polygamous communities to American ones, and vice versa, for arranged marriages. The alleged victim in this case is likely one of 31 girls between the ages of 12 and 17 that American authorities believe crossed the border over a 10-year period. It was three-and-a-half years ago that we learned about that.

The wheels of justice turn excruciatingly slowly in this country — but in Bountiful, for many years, they appear barely to have been turning at all. Whatever the outcome of the charges laid this week, we have an opportunity here for some serious introspection: Did we do enough for the women and children of Bountiful? And if we didn’t, why the hell not?

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2014/08/15/chris-selley-why-did-it-take-so-long-to-address-bountifuls-horror-stories/