Constitutional debate over Canada’s polygamy law heads back to court
CRANBROOK, B.C. — A decades-long constitutional debate over Canada’s polygamy law is set to flare up again Tuesday, six years after a British Columbia Supreme Court ruled plural marriage is a crime.
Winston Blackmore of Bountiful, B.C., is expected to argue the law infringes on his freedom of religion and expression. Blackmore married at least 24 women between 1990 and 2014 and was found guilty of one count of polygamy earlier this year.
Blackmore is the leader of a small community in southeast B.C. that follows the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon breakaway sect that condones plural or “celestial” marriage.
The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has renounced any connection to the polygamist group.