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	Timeline of Polygamy in Canada Canada.com November 23, 2011 www.canada.com/life/Timeline+polygamy+Canada/5756434/story.html 1843 — Officially recorded date of Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, having a revelation about celestial or polygamous marriages. 1862 — U.S. enacts law prohibiting polygamy. 1888 — Charles O. Card, who is wanted for polygamy in the United States, goes with two others to Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald asking for special dispensation to bring their plural wives and other families to Canada. Macdonald says no and the next year brings in legislation outlawing polygamy. 1890 — Wilford Woodruff, the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, renounces the practice of polygamy. 1946 — Winston Blackmore's uncle, Harold Blackmore, breaks away from the mainstream Mormon church over the issue of polygamy. He buys property outside Creston, B.C., and establishes the community that will come to be called Bountiful. Blackmore is affiliated with other polygamists — fundamentalist Mormons — living along the Utah-Arizona border in a community called Short Creek. Spring 1961 — Winston Blackmore's father, Ray, takes control of Bountiful away from Harold. October 1991 — RCMP conclude a 13-month investigation and recommend charges be laid against Winston Blackmore and Dalmon Oler for practising polygamy. June 1992 — B.C. attorney general Colin Gabelman decides not to lay charges after getting legal opinions that the polygamy section of the Criminal Code would not withstand a charter challenge. 2002 — Winston Blackmore is excommunicated by Warren Jeffs, who succeeded his father, Rulon, as the prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS). Jim Oler is appointed bishop. Jeffs is the spiritual leader to some 10,000 followers in the U.S. as well as the residents of Bountiful, who broke away from the mainstream church over the polygamy issue. Spring 2004 — Debbie Palmer, third wife of Winston Blackmore's father, Ray, and several others, files a complaint with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal. By the time Palmer left Bountiful in 1988, she had eight children and three different husbands. She was married to her first husband when she was 15; he was 57 and already had five wives. He was also her step-grandfather. Palmer took all of her children when she left Bountiful. June 14, 2004 — After receiving a letter from someone in Bountiful alleging abuse, B.C. attorney general Geoff Plant asks RCMP to investigate. April 2005 — Winston Blackmore holds a polygamy summit in Creston, B.C. At the summit, he says that his son married a 14-year-old. He also admits that he has married "several under-aged girls." Summer 2005 — Wally Oppal is appointed attorney general of British Columbia and describes the situation in Bountiful as "intolerable." May 5, 2006 — FBI puts Jeffs on its 10 Most Wanted list. Aug. 25, 2006 — Jeffs is arrested outside Las Vegas on a routine traffic stop. Dec. 8, 2006 — Winston Blackmore goes on CNN with Larry King and admits to being a polygamist and having 'married' several girls who were 16 and one who was 15. Aug. 1, 2007 — Special prosecutor Richard Peck recommends to Oppal that rather than laying charges, the province should refer the polygamy law to the B.C. Court of Appeal to determine whether it is constitutionally sound. Oppal disagrees. Sept. 7, 2007 — Oppal appoints another special prosecutor, Leonard Doust to review the evidence RCMP collected and review Peck's decision. Sept. 25, 2007 — Jeffs is convicted on two counts as an accomplice to rape of a 14-year-old girl, whom he had forced to marry her 19-year-old first cousin. April 7, 2008 — Doust reports to Oppal that he agrees with Peck and recommends a court reference. Oppal is still not convinced. June 2, 2008 — Oppal appoints Terry Robertson as special prosecutor, who subsequently asks RCMP to do more investigating. Jan. 6, 2009 — RCMP Sgt. Terry Jacklin swears information about Oler and Winston Blackmore, charging each with one count of practising polygamy. Jan. 7, 2009 — Blackmore and Oler are arrested and taken to Cranbrook, B.C., where they are charged and released with conditions. Sept. 23, 2009 — Criminal polygamy charges against Winston Blackmore and Oler are thrown out by B.C. Supreme Court Judge Sunni Stromberg-Stein. Nov. 22, 2010 — A reference case to determine the constitutionality of Section 293 of the Criminal Code of Canada, which outlaws polygamy, begins before Chief Justice Robert Bauman of the B.C. Supreme Court. June 3, 2011 — Judge Campbell Miller rules that Winston Blackmore will get no ban on publication of evidence and witness testimony, no order restricting the use of evidence and witness testimony in any possible future criminal prosecution under Canada's polygamy law and, no further delay in the tax trial. Nov. 23, 2011 — Justice Bauman, after hearing 42 days of legal arguments with opposing parties arguing the right to religious freedom and the risk of harm polygamy poses to women and children, rules to uphold Canada's polygamy laws as constitutional, but says they cannot be used to prosecute children aged 12 to 17.
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