Today the RCMP arrested 2 leaders in Bountifull BC  Canada for polygamy. This community is a cousin to Eldarado community. The challenge will be on a consitution right for the freedom of religion versa slavery and explotation of women. Will keep you posted.Winstom Blackmore 52 is qouted to have as many as 20 wives some were as young as 14.

Is this group also FLDS (Fundamental Latter Day Saints)?  Or is it another breakoff the Mormon church?

This should be interesting to see how Canada rules on it.

From the Canadain Press  it is 6:49 pm here on Jan 07, 2009

B.C. polygamist leaders charged in case that will test ban on multiple marriage

3 hours ago

VANCOUVER, B.C. — After decades of controversy and allegations, RCMP swept into the polygamous community of Bountiful, B.C., on Wednesday and arrested two sect leaders, including one who had bragged of multiple wives and dozens of children and all but dared police to stop him.

Winston Blackmore and James Oler - leaders of separate, divided factions in the community of about 1,000 people - were each charged with a single count of practising polygamy.

Blackmore is accused of having 20 wives and Oler two, and police say some of their wives were as young as 15 years old when they were married.

The arrest brought a dramatic end to almost 20 years of investigations and scrutiny, and the start of a criminal case that will test the limits of Canada's prohibition of polygamy.

"We've always felt that there has been exploitation," Attorney General Wally Oppal said Wednesday at a news conference in Vancouver.

"The question is whether under our laws we were in a position to proceed, and we have concluded that we are."

Blackmore and Oler were in custody Wednesday in Cranbrook, B.C., and expected to be released by the end of the day. Police had asked a justice of the peace to impose a number of conditions, including barring the pair from performing so-called "celestial marriages."

The RCMP had also recommended charges of sexual exploitation, but Oppal said because the age of consent was 14 years old until it was raised to 16 last year, prosecutors didn't believe they could win a conviction.

The self-named community in the Creston Valley, not far from the U.S. border in southeastern B.C., is made up of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a breakaway sect of the mainstream Mormon church.

The mainstream church renounced the polygamy in 1890 but the fundamentalist sects have continued the practice, which they claim brings glorification in Heaven.

Blackmore has openly admitted to having numerous wives but has insisted his community abhors sexual abuse of children.

However, Blackmore has refused to discuss allegations that teenaged girls in the community marry older men, and has instead accused Oppal of religious persecution.

"It must be about his own religious bias and now he wants the Liberal government to persecute some of the citizens that they have an obligation to serve and protect," Blackmore wrote in an email to The Canadian Press last June.

The community drew the attention of RCMP in 1990, when a former community member said she was married to a 57-year-old man when she was just 15.

In the years since, Bountiful has been investigated for accusations including polygamy, sexual abuse, and trafficking young girls to the U.S. to be married.

But until now, prosecutors have shied away from pursuing polygamy charges amid concerns that such a case could fail under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, essentially striking down the Criminal Code provision against polygamy.

"That's not really our concern, our concern is: Is the law being violated, are there people being exploited?" said Oppal.

"If some court decides otherwise, we would obviously have to live with that."

The most recent RCMP investigation began in the fall of 2005, when RCMP looked into allegations of polygamy and sexual exploitation against Blackmore and Oler.

After interviewing dozens of potential witnesses in Canada and the United States the Mounties again recommended charges. Last June, Oppal appointed a special prosecutor to review the case.

That came despite two earlier legal opinions that it would be difficult to proceed with polygamy charges.

Oppal said he was compelled to act amid renewed public interest after authorities seized hundreds of children from a sister polygamous sect in Texas last year.

At least one of the girls in that case was from Bountiful, although Oppal said the Texas cases isn't related to the charges against either Blackmore or Oler.

Nancy Mereska, whose Stop Polygamy campaign has long called for charges against Bountiful's leaders, said the community shouldn't be protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"Polygamy is not a religious right; polygamy is a crime," said Mereska, who lives in Two Hills, Alta.

"I believe that Canada has all the ammunition it needs to take this process all the way up to the Supreme Court and I believe that the Supreme Court of Canada will uphold the laws against polygamy."

Alison Brewin, executive director of West Coast Legal Education and Action Fund, made up of lawyers and legal experts, said the lack of action in Bountiful has undermined women's rights and set young women and girls up for exploitation.

"In the case of Bountiful, these vulnerabilities are reinforced by the closed nature of the community, including the control of information," Brewin said in a statement.

it appears they are from the same sect

My goodness.  2 countries with the same problem.  Like I mentioned earlier, I'll be interested as to how Canada handles this case.

Yes it will be I be keeping u all posted

This is from Global TV

Polygamist Winston Blackmore statement

Provided to Global BC.

Winston Blackmore,

Published: Thursday, January 08, 2009

Since I am not going to take your questions upon advice of legal counsel, and since you all know that whether I have liked it or not I have always tried to accommodate the media, I will try to anticipate your questions in this statement.

Almost nineteen years ago we were discovered by the media. We didn't even know that we were lost. It has taken three AG's, many special prosecutors, and millions and millions of tax payers dollars, almost nineteen years to arrive at the conclusion that Fundamentalist Mormons want to practice the fundamentals of their faith.

Winston Blackmore of Bountiful speaks at The Truth About Bountiful meeting.

Ian Smith/Vancouver Sun

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Canada has a law against polygamy. It was made in or around 1892 and was made specifically against the Mormons. Canada also has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees every person the right to live their religion, and I guess now, every person except those of us who are Fundamentalist believing and practicing Mormons.

This is not about the police. They kindly waited until my children would be all at school before they came to arrest me. They certainly did not expect that school would be delayed for two hours because a foot of heavy snow had fallen in the night and all my school children were still home. They also did not know that my three children that want to be police officers when they grow up, a 16 year old girl, a 12 year old boy, and an eleven year old boy got to witness the process. My children hated the police all day long and were still hating them when I got home. I have met dozens of police officers over the years and made many good friends among them. I was treated very kindly by the arresting officers but can honestly say to them, you have some pr work to do with some of my family members, and perhaps since Canada has chosen to disregard our basic charter rights then you should at least work in some sensitivity when it comes to dealing with our children.

This is not about Polygamy. Tens of thousands of polygamists among many different cultures are hiding in plain sight all across Canada. They are known by their neighbors, policemen, legislators and media just as we are. I am sure that they are an active valued part of the economic structure of the communities in which they live just as we are. But they are not fundamentalist Mormons! To us this is about religious persecution. Persecution has always been about politics. Whatever else is involved with it, it is still about politics. It is therefore no surprise to us that this spectacular grandstanding event has happened in the face of an up and coming provincial election. I hope this government has calculated all the risks. Time will tell.

My family reaction was negative and yesterday was a hard day for them. There was no way that we could talk. They listened to the news, collectively fielded hundreds of phone calls and waited. My little children couldn't do their school work, and were emotional and traumatized by the uncertainty of the event. My college children couldn't focus. I didn't know about it all day but a number of my dear family members waited outside to see me when I was released. We had a wonderful reunion and as I stood there in Cranbrook with a dozen grown up sons and daughters, all struggling in their own way to understand this religious persecution, not to mention the inevitable question of why a government presiding over this economy, would target them as employers, students, workers, taxpayers, all the while wasting enormous amounts of their hard earned dollars waging a political religious campaign. One quipped, "wouldn't it be nice if this government focused their political and financial energy on creating jobs"? I had this huge feeling of gratitude that these fine men and woman are what my life is really all about. My family will be just fine.

Where do we go from here? I have to make an appearance on January 21. You will all be welcome to stay home from that event. I plan on doing what I have always done. I will get up and get my children up for school. We will live each day as we have done for the last nineteen years. We will teach our children the best we can, help them get a good education, and I will try and encourage my children that want to be police officers to do so, because Canada needs good, fair, unbiased officers, from coast to coast that will honestly deal with the diverse multicultural society that it has become, without discriminating against those visible or invisible minorities, whether racial, religious or simply cultural. I want my children to respect the First Nations People of our great country, to stand in honor with them and recognize according to our Book of Mormon teachings that they were preserved by the hand of God upon this land. I want my children to grow up, get a good education, go to work and do a good job for the business that hires them, and a better job for the people that they employ. Naturally, I want them to cherish my faith, but if they do not, they are growing up knowing that their dad will always till the day he dies be there to joy in their joys, sorrow in their sorrows, and encourage them to do right along the way. I am what I am, we are what we are. We are descended from a long line of Mormon believing people. My family did not make up our faith nor did we establish the fundamental teachings of Mormonism. Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. He has taught us, and I have taught my children that they should pray for their enemies as well as their friends. That is what we will continue to do.

I want to thank the hundreds, if not by now thousands who have called in their support. You guys are the best.

© Broadcasting 2009

Amazing that in the beginning there was one man and one woman and the wrd of God didnt change on that acord but man got it in his head he nedded more than one wife but these fundlementalist get this doctrine untill the 1800's with Joseph Smith..... i personally know a woman who came out of Bountifull Bc and her son and the abuse they had gone through.... this is not religious freedom but explotation of women....

I agree.  I am glad that someone out there knows someone personally that has escaped from this group.  There are so many books that are written by women who have escaped this group, and the abuse is horrible!  It is just as bad or worse of the treatment of women in many Muslim countries.

Thanks for keeping us updated.

It been pretty quiet here on this but I think the explosion is about to come when the formal cahrges are laid.