Polygamist gets to eat cherry pie

Dear Editor: Let me declare upfront that I’m agnostic, so have no affiliation to the Fundamentalist Mormon Church, nor any other religious congregation for that matter.

I am a B.C. taxpayer, though, and remember that charges were first laid against Winston Blackmore back when Attorney-General Wally Oppal headed the Justice Ministry in Premier Gordon Campbell’s administration.

So it’s at least 15 years that my taxes have been paying lawyers to prosecute this man, and probably paying for his defence lawyers, too.

Last week, after very lengthy legal proceedings, the judge sentenced him to six months' house arrest on the polygamy charge of having 24 wives in his community of Bountiful. Things have certainly been bountiful for Blackmore, who has fathered 149 children with all those spouses.

Now his house arrest means that he’s going to spend more hard time doing exactly what he’s been doing. Chances are that when he arrived home from the courtroom, he was be greeted with 24 cherry pies, one baked by each wife.

Can you remember many voices raised in opposition to the Attorney-General for bringing those charges about 15 years ago? Many legal minds far smarter than his suggested it was a waste of time, and certainly of taxpayers’ money.

Of course, being a politician, he wouldn’t listen, and now he can go and bake his own cherry pie.

Bernie Smith, Parksville