Inside Bountiful: Winston Blackmore

Winston Blackmore’s way of life is on trial. A polygamist leader with 15 wives and more than a hundred kids, Blackmore has been under investigation for years.

But the latest case looking into his lifestyle, heard in BC’s Supreme Court, could rule once and for all whether practicing polygamy is a religious right – or a crime. On the eve of that decision, 16×9 spent two weeks with the man at the centre of the landmark case.

“I think that every police officer and every teacher and every judge and every adult should just take a look at themselves and before they go and try to slam dunk the little polygamist communities,” Blackmore said. “They should ask themselves: Am I a polygamist? Do I have two ongoing relationships?”

Blackmore leads a congregation of about 500 people in the community of Bountiful, in south eastern BC. He defends that prohibiting polygamy is a violation of his charter rights. Lawyers for the BC Attorney General stated otherwise.

“The child bride smuggled across the border to serve as compliant wives to middle aged men they have never met, the boys expelled or sent to work camps without an education …The evidence in this case shows that these harms are caused by the practice of polygamy, as surely as anything can be said to be caused by anything else,” said lead lawyer, Craig Jones.

Bountiful is a community of many dynamics. The town split in 2002 with about half of its people leaving to following Blackmore, and the other half deciding to follow Warren Jeffs. Jeffs, their self-proclaimed prophet in the U.S, is now serving a life sentence on two counts of child sexual assault.

Since the split much has changed. Jeffs’ followers still maintain the traditional dress and follow his strict religious teachings, while Blackmore’s followers show signs of modernization. Women in Blackmore’s community are allowed to go to school, many teens have jobs in town, and people are allowed to leave without fear of loosing their families.

“A lot of people have a messed up view of us. They don’t know what we are and they judge off what other people say,” said Winston’s daughter, Sally.

But is polygamy an oppressive practice – or merely an expression of one’s religious beliefs?

“There is not one thing that is wrong with three consenting adults being a family unit,” claims Blackmore.

Carolyn Jarvis sets the scene in Bountiful, only days before BC’s Supreme Court will make an historic ruling. Watch 16×9 Saturday at 7pm when we take an exclusive look into the community.