Timeline: Polygamy in Canada

The Chief Justice of the B.C. Supreme Court has upheld Canada’s law against
multiple marriage, saying religious freedom is trumped by the need to protect
women and children from harm.

Justice Robert Bauman was asked to assess the constitutionality of the polygamy
law following the failed prosecution of two leaders of the polygamous community
of Bountiful.

His ruling says the anti-polygamy section of the Criminal Code violates the
charter’s religious guarantees, but protecting women and children take
precedent, adding that the law should not be used to prosecute child brides.

Many experts say his ruling will be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court
of Canada.

Global News looks back at polygamy laws in Canada.

1843 – Officially recorded date
of Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, having a revelation about celestial or
polygamous marriages.

1862 – U.S. enacts law prohibiting
polygamy.

1888 – Charles O. Card, who is
wanted for polygamy in the United States, goes with two others to Prime
Minister Sir John A. Macdonald asking for special dispensation to bring their
plural wives and other families to Canada. Macdonald says no and the next year
brings in legislation outlawing polygamy.

1890 – Wilford Woodruff, the head
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, renounces the practice of
polygamy.

1946 – Winston Blackmore’s uncle,
Harold Blackmore, breaks away from the mainstream Mormon church over the issue
of polygamy. He buys property outside Creston, B.C., and establishes the
community that will come to be called Bountiful. Blackmore is affiliated with
other polygamists – fundamentalist Mormons – living along the Utah-Arizona
border in a community called Short Creek.

Spring 1961 – Winston Blackmore’s
father, Ray, takes control of Bountiful away from Harold.

October 1991 – RCMP conclude a
13-month investigation and recommend charges be laid against Winston Blackmore
and Dalmon Oler for practising polygamy.

June 1992 – B.C. attorney general
Colin Gabelman decides not to lay charges after getting legal opinions that the
polygamy section of the Criminal Code would not withstand a charter challenge.

2002 – Winston Blackmore is
excommunicated by Warren Jeffs, who succeeded his father, Rulon, as the prophet
of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS). Jim
Oler is appointed bishop. Jeffs is the spiritual leader to some 10,000
followers in the U.S. as well as the residents of Bountiful, who broke away
from the mainstream church over the polygamy issue.

Spring 2004 – Debbie Palmer,
third wife of Winston Blackmore’s father, Ray, and several others, files a
complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. By the time Palmer left
Bountiful in 1988, she had eight children and three different husbands. She was
married to her first husband when she was 15; he was 57 and already had five
wives. He was also her step-grandfather. Palmer took all of her children when
she left Bountiful.

June 14, 2004 – After receiving a
letter from someone in Bountiful alleging abuse, B.C. attorney general Geoff
Plant asks RCMP to investigate.

April 2005 – Winston Blackmore
holds a polygamy summit in Creston, B.C. At the summit, he says that his son
married a 14-year-old. He also admits that he has married “several
under-aged girls.”

Summer 2005 – Wally Oppal is
appointed attorney general of British Columbia and describes the situation in
Bountiful as “intolerable.”

May 5, 2006 – FBI puts Jeffs on
its 10 Most Wanted list.

Aug. 25, 2006 – Jeffs is arrested
outside Las Vegas on a routine traffic stop.

Dec. 8, 2006 – Winston Blackmore
goes on CNN with Larry King and admits to being a polygamist and having
‘married’ several girls who were 16 and one who was 15.

Aug. 1, 2007 – Special prosecutor
Richard Peck recommends to Oppal that rather than laying charges, the province
should refer the polygamy law to the B.C. Court of Appeal to determine whether
it is constitutionally sound. Oppal disagrees.

Sept. 7, 2007 – Oppal appoints
another special prosecutor, Leonard Doust to review the evidence RCMP collected
and review Peck’s decision.

Sept. 25, 2007 – Jeffs is
convicted on two counts as an accomplice to rape of a 14-year-old girl, whom he
had forced to marry her 19-year-old first cousin.

April 7, 2008 – Doust reports to
Oppal that he agrees with Peck and recommends a court reference. Oppal is still
not convinced.

June 2, 2008 – Oppal appoints
Terry Robertson as special prosecutor, who subsequently asks RCMP to do more
investigating.

Jan. 6, 2009 – RCMP Sgt. Terry
Jacklin swears information about Oler and Winston Blackmore, charging each with
one count of practising polygamy.

Jan. 7, 2009 – Blackmore and Oler
are arrested and taken to Cranbrook, B.C., where they are charged and released
with conditions.

Sept. 23, 2009 – Criminal
polygamy charges against Winston Blackmore and Oler are thrown out by B.C.
Supreme Court Judge Sunni Stromberg-Stein.

Nov. 22, 2010 – A reference case
to determine the constitutionality of Section 293 of the Criminal Code of
Canada, which outlaws polygamy, begins before Chief Justice Robert Bauman of
the B.C. Supreme Court.

June 3, 2011 – Judge Campbell
Miller rules that Winston Blackmore will get no ban on publication of evidence
and witness testimony, no order restricting the use of evidence and witness
testimony in any possible future criminal prosecution under Canada’s polygamy
law and, no further delay in the tax trial.

Nov. 23, 2011 – Justice Bauman,
after hearing 42 days of legal arguments with opposing parties arguing the
right to religious freedom and the risk of harm polygamy poses to women and
children, rules to uphold Canada’s polygamy laws as constitutional, but says
they cannot be used to prosecute children aged 12 to 17.