In British Columbia, Canada’s Opposition New Democrat Party (NDP) and the federal Harper Conservative administration are having a blazing row about the possible plight of young female children in Bountiful, British Columbia- an outpost of schismatic fundamentalist Mormonoid polygamists. So, why is the Harper administration apparently so reluctant to act in this context?

Vancouver area NDP MP Dawn Black has raised the issue with federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson. While it’s up to the federal government to formulate the national Criminal Code (their version of our Crimes Act 1961),  British Columbia and other individual provinces are entrusted with enforcement of that legislation. Trouble is, British Columbia’s provincial legislature has received legal advice that if their province moved against Bountiful, on the basis that polygamy was the offending principle, the schismatics would win any resultant court case fought on those principles, based on the premise that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms might protect polygamous heterosexual (and same-sex???) marriages on the basis of ‘religious freedom.’

Ms Black doesn’t buy this argument, and argues that it would therefore be a good idea that if there were any substantive evidence of child sexual abuse of female children within Bountiful, statutory rape charges could be brought without having to invoke the Charter as noted above. I’m inclined to agree with her. If there is indeed substantive evidence that female children are being sexually abused within any such settlement, then their protection from further or potential future abuse must come first.

 Recommended:

Steven Chase: “NDP Calls on Ottawa to Take Action Against Polygamy”
Globe and Mail: 24.04.08: http://www.theglobeandmail.com