Wives of Polygamist Prompt Questions
VANCOUVER, British Columbia--The Canadian government was scrambling this week to explain why three wives of a Mormon polygamist in British Columbia had been allowed to immigrate to Canada from the United States.
Saying polygamy is illegal in Canada, opposition members in the House of Commons this week peppered the federal immigration minister with questions about how senior officials came to allow the three wives to cross the Idaho-British Columbia border to live in a polygamist commune. Immigration Minister Denis Coderre promised to look into news reports that staff members in his department had granted the three women permission to immigrate in the 1990s to live with Winston Blackmore, who until last year was leader of the 1,000-member sect called Bountiful, near the town of Creston.
The polygamist group is known as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Mormon offshoot rejected by the established Mormon church.
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