inside Bountiful, who could not be named for fear of repercussions. They had told herthat the department of education routinely gave the school several weeks’ notice before an inspection—time enough for the school staff to remove all the white-supremacist slogans that had been posted on the classroom walls. Inspectors apparently were fooled, but Vance thinks they should have been wise to the fact that the teachers were never able to explain why the school had hardly any graduates. The reason, of course, was that the girls left school to be married, and many of the boys were sent away. Only a few students were allowed to finish high school. But that information was never shared with inspectors, and it seems they never did ask for it.
The new complaint from the women of Creston didn’t spark any action, either. In the meantime, then attorney general Geoff Plant explained to me somewhat impatiently, “Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, they are protected by Freedom of Religion. I cannot prosecute because it could result in a Charter challenge.”
One of the authors of the gender-equality guarantee in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the lawyer Marilou McPhedran, saw this as “flimsy reasoning from a high-ranking representative of the people in a free and democratic society.” She was surprised that Plant would justify his inaction because of speculation that the Criminal Code prohibition of polygamy might be trumped by the Charter’s guarantee of freedom of religion. “There are no absolute rights or freedoms in Canada,” she explained. She pointed to the Supreme Court case of the Jehovah’s Witness family who refused a blood transfusion for their sick child—their right to freedom of religion was overruled in favour of the safety and health of the child.
“In the Bountiful case,” said McPhedran, “the excuse that women and girls have consented to their treatment would likelycollapse when measured with the Criminal Code prohibition of polygamy and equality rights of women and girls in Sections 15 and 28 of the Charter.”
So why were government officials dithering?
Doug Barron, a corporal in the Creston RCMP, told me they would investigate a complaint but hadn’t received one. When I reminded him that the daily news was full of RCMP investigations into other criminal activities where no one had made a complaint, such as terrorist cells and biker gangs, he had no comment.
As for Plant, he replied curtly, “My only source of knowledge about Bountiful is the media. Most of what I say is misrepresented by the media, so why should I believe what they say about others?” He took the same line as the RCMP. “If people think there’s been an offence, they need to go to the police. It concerns me when people think I have some responsibility for this.”
The women of British Columbia disagreed. They saw the inaction as morally bankrupt and a failure to protect Canadian citizens, and launched three protests in April and May 2004. One was the letter from the Creston women regarding the Education Act, another came from the Western Women’s Committee of the Canadian Employment and Immigration Union (CEIU), who sent a letter to Geoff Plant, copying it to every other level of government and minister that seemed to be responsible, including Prime Minister Paul Martin, asking that the laws governing polygamy, statutory rape, incest and provincial and federal tax fraud be enforced in Bountiful. And a third came from a group of women, including Debbie Palmer, who filed a complaint to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
Debbie Palmer was living in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, with her three school-age children and one grandchild, when Iinterviewed her for the magazine story. She could paper the walls of her four-bedroom duplex with the petitions and letters she’d sent to authorities in Canada. She had already written a book and kept up-to-date data on the goings-on within the cult. She also provided
The new complaint from the women of Creston didn’t spark any action, either. In the meantime, then attorney general Geoff Plant explained to me somewhat impatiently, “Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, they are protected by Freedom of Religion. I cannot prosecute because it could result in a Charter challenge.”
One of the authors of the gender-equality guarantee in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the lawyer Marilou McPhedran, saw this as “flimsy reasoning from a high-ranking representative of the people in a free and democratic society.” She was surprised that Plant would justify his inaction because of speculation that the Criminal Code prohibition of polygamy might be trumped by the Charter’s guarantee of freedom of religion. “There are no absolute rights or freedoms in Canada,” she explained. She pointed to the Supreme Court case of the Jehovah’s Witness family who refused a blood transfusion for their sick child—their right to freedom of religion was overruled in favour of the safety and health of the child.
“In the Bountiful case,” said McPhedran, “the excuse that women and girls have consented to their treatment would likelycollapse when measured with the Criminal Code prohibition of polygamy and equality rights of women and girls in Sections 15 and 28 of the Charter.”
So why were government officials dithering?
Doug Barron, a corporal in the Creston RCMP, told me they would investigate a complaint but hadn’t received one. When I reminded him that the daily news was full of RCMP investigations into other criminal activities where no one had made a complaint, such as terrorist cells and biker gangs, he had no comment.
As for Plant, he replied curtly, “My only source of knowledge about Bountiful is the media. Most of what I say is misrepresented by the media, so why should I believe what they say about others?” He took the same line as the RCMP. “If people think there’s been an offence, they need to go to the police. It concerns me when people think I have some responsibility for this.”
The women of British Columbia disagreed. They saw the inaction as morally bankrupt and a failure to protect Canadian citizens, and launched three protests in April and May 2004. One was the letter from the Creston women regarding the Education Act, another came from the Western Women’s Committee of the Canadian Employment and Immigration Union (CEIU), who sent a letter to Geoff Plant, copying it to every other level of government and minister that seemed to be responsible, including Prime Minister Paul Martin, asking that the laws governing polygamy, statutory rape, incest and provincial and federal tax fraud be enforced in Bountiful. And a third came from a group of women, including Debbie Palmer, who filed a complaint to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
Debbie Palmer was living in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, with her three school-age children and one grandchild, when Iinterviewed her for the magazine story. She could paper the walls of her four-bedroom duplex with the petitions and letters she’d sent to authorities in Canada. She had already written a book and kept up-to-date data on the goings-on within the cult. She also provided
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