Federal bill targeting polygamy could come into play in B.C. case
VANCOUVER — It’s called the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Practices Act and it’s almost certain that polygamists from Bountiful, B.C. will be among the first affected by it when or if it’s passed.
The federal bill is being fast-tracked and, by the end of the day Wednesday is expected to be approved by the Senate’s human rights committee and passed on to the Senate with a recommendation for its approval.
Among the amendments are additions and clarifications to the Criminal Code. If the bill is enacted quickly, the changes could be used by special prosecutor Peter Wilson, who has not ruled out laying more charges in Bountiful.
Earlier this year, four people from Bountiful — including Canada’s most notorious polygamist Winston Blackmore and another former bishop James Oler — were charged with a total of five polygamy-related offences. A trial date has yet to be set, although the defendants’ next court appearance is Jan. 29.
Of course, it doesn’t seem that anyone in Ottawa had in mind Bountiful when the legislation was written or debated.
Certainly when the Senate human rights committee began its deliberations on the bill this week, the majority of those testifying were from immigrant and ethnic communities. As a result, the senators didn’t hear much about the homegrown polygamist sects who have thrived in Western Canada for more than a century or about Blackmore with his 25 wives and more than 125 children or the jailed pedophile prophet, Warren Jeffs, the spiritual leader to several thousand in Canada and the United States.
In fact, it’s fair to say that tougher laws for homegrown polygamists is just a happy, if unintended, consequence.
It was Immigration Minister Chris Alexander who introduced the bill in early November, underscoring that this is driven by concerns about immigrant, Muslim communities rather than fundamentalist Mormons practising polygamy in B.C. and Alberta.
Still, there are good things in the bill, which would amend sections of the Immigration and Refugee Act, the Civil Marriage Act, the Criminal Code, the Prisons and Reformatory Act and the Youth Justice Act:
■ It would set 16 as the minimum age for marriage.
■ It would prohibit immi- g rants and refugees from entering Canada if they are or will be practising polygamy with anyone present in Canada.
■ It provides for anyone who fears that a child will be forced into marriage to ask a provincial court judge to intervene. The judge could then require the parties to appear. Defendants could be ordered to “keep the peace and be of good behaviour” for up to 12 months or up to two years if the defendant had a previous conviction under the forced marriage section.
■ The Criminal Code would be amended so that anyone legally authorized to solemnize marriages under either federal or provincial law could be sent to jail for up to five years for performing polygamous or forced marriages.
■ Anyone who celebrates, aids or participates in polygamous marriages or those involving children under 16 could be sent to jail for up to five years.
Where the bill begins to get problematic is with the amendment that makes it an offence to celebrate, aid or participate in a ceremony knowing that one of the persons being married is marrying against their will.
The notion of free will is more clearly stated in the amendment to the Civil Marriage Act, which would require both people to be 16 or older, unmarried and to have given “free and enlightened consent of two persons.”
What does “against their will” or even “free and enlightened consent” mean for children raised in a closed, religious communities where they attend private schools, are taught by those of the same faith and religious leaders that those who don’t believe as they do are ‘apostates’ and ‘infidels’ who must be shunned?
Few young women from Bountiful who’ve been taught that God chooses their husbands for them and reveals the names to the bishop would ever testify that they hadn’t given ‘enlightened’ consent or hadn’t freely chosen when their immortality depends on obedience to God?
Strikingly absent from those testifying at the Senate committee were any B.C. prosecutors, lawyers, attorneys general or RCMP who have been involved in the decisions in the early 1990s and in the early 2000s not to lay charges against Blackmore and other polygamists in Bountiful. They might have had some valuable advice regarding the wording of any new laws.
But where the bill totally overreaches is in the amendment of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. It would allow provincial judges to have children held in custody for up to 30 days if it appears that the child may disobey a court order against entering into a polygamous or forced marriage.
It would criminalize children for their upbringing.
There are other remedies. The most obvious is to ensure that all children have opportunities to explore different ideas in classrooms where they can meet children who are being raised with different traditions, customs and faiths.
Constitutionally, however, that’s beyond the federal government’s reach.
And, sadly, it’s a solution that provinces like British Columbia have already shut the door on by allowing both publicly and privately funded, independent schools.
Forced marriages, child marriages and polygamy are barbaric practices and anathema to the equality rights of children and women.
After more than a century of ignoring them, the government’s bill takes Canada a step closer toward eliminating them.