Canada's concern is sect sex crimes

VICTORIA, British Columbia (AP) — A polygamous group in southeastern British Columbia is offensive and abhorrent to Canadians, but the main concern is whether it is responsible for sex crimes, provincial Attorney General Wally Oppal says.

Oppal, a former judge who was elected in May, said recently he has stacks of letters from people across Canada about the town of Bountiful, where reports of sexual abuse of women and children have surfaced but have never resulted in a conviction.

"I got letters from one whole block in North Vancouver. Everybody in the block wrote to me," he said.

Oppal met last Thursday with Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff in Vancouver to discuss polygamy and options for pursuing the investigation, adding that prosecution likely will require the willingness of some members of the Bountiful community to testify.

"It's something that incenses a lot of Canadians," Oppal said. "The ideas that we are condoning this type of activity is something that's a matter of concern to Canadians. I'm concerned about it as well."

In 1947, four families from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, based in Hildale, Utah, and nearby Colorado City, Ariz., founded Bountiful near Creston in southwestern British Columbia, just north of the Idaho Panhandle. The town has grown to about 1,000 residents.

According to the sect, which broke from the mainstream Mormon church after that church renounced polygamy, plural marriage is essential for its members to be glorified in heaven.

A sex-crimes investigation is being conducted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Oppal said.

"We need people who will come in and testify that there is evidence of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, sexual assaults," Oppal said. "Those are the matters of greater concern to me than the polygamy case and the polygamy issue."

Utah has taken civil action to seize property and file charges of welfare fraud against polygamists, but nobody in Bountiful collects welfare, he said.