End polygamy ban, report urges
Ottawa
Friday, January 13, 2006 Page A10
Canadian
Press
OTTAWA -- A new
study for the federal Justice Department says Canada should get rid of its law
banning polygamy and change other legislation to help women and children living
in such multiple-spouse
relationships.
"Criminalization does not address
the harms associated with valid foreign polygamous marriages and plural unions,
in particular the harms to women," says the report, obtained by The Canadian
Press under the Access to Information Act.
The
research paper is part of a controversial $150,000 polygamy project, launched a
year ago and paid for by the Justice Department and Status of Women
Canada.
The
paper by three law professors at Queen's University in Kingston argues that
Section 293 of the Criminal Code banning polygamy serves no useful purpose and
in any case is rarely prosecuted.
Instead, Canadian laws should be
changed to better accommodate the problems of women in polygamous marriages,
providing them clearer spousal support and inheritance
rights.
Currently, there is a hodgepodge of
legislation across the provinces, some of which -- Ontario, for example -- give
limited recognition to foreign polygamous marriages for the purposes of spousal
support. Some jurisdictions provide no relief.
Chief author Martha Bailey says
criminalizing polygamy, typically a marriage involving one man and several
wives, serves no good purpose and prosecutions could do damage to the women and
children in such relationships.
"Why criminalize the behaviour?" she
said in an interview. "We don't criminalize
adultery.
"In
light of the fact that we have a fairly permissive society . . . why are we
singling out that particular form of behaviour for criminalization?" Instead,
there are other laws available to deal with problems often associated with
polygamous unions, which are not legally recognized as marriages in
Canada.
"If
there are problems such as child abuse, or spousal abuse, there are other
criminal provisions or other laws dealing with those problems that certainly
should be enforced," Prof. Bailey said.
Liberal Justice Minister Irwin
Cotler said he has seen only a summary of the research reports but already
rejects lifting the criminal ban on polygamy.
"At
this point, the practice of polygamy, bigamy and incest are criminal offences in
Canada and will continue to be," he said from
Montreal.
The
Justice Department project was prompted in part by an RCMP investigation into
the religious community of Bountiful in Creston, B.C., where polygamy is
practised openly. The British Columbia government has long been considering
whether to lay charges under Section 293.
But
the project was also intended to provide the Liberal government with ammunition
to help defend its same-sex marriage bill last
spring.
Opponents argued that the bill, now
law, was a slippery slope that would open the door to polygamy and even
bestiality.
Another report for the project, also
led by two Queen's University professors, dismisses the slippery-slope argument,
saying that allowing same-sex marriages promotes equality while polygamous
marriages are generally harmful to women's interests and would therefore promote
inequality.