Mike on Crime

By Dirk Meissner, THE CANADIAN PRESS

VICTORIA – Ottawa is suggesting B.C.‘s children’s ministry may become involved in a polygamy-related investigation in the United States on behalf of a teenaged B.C. girl who is currently being held by Texas authorities, Attorney General Wally Oppal said Wednesday.

The federal Foreign Affairs Department contacted the province regarding the 17-year-old girl apprehended by U.S. child welfare authorities last month at a polygamist community in Eldorado, Texas, Oppal said.

“Foreign Affairs has suggested that the ministry here may have to get involved,” said Oppal

“This is the first time that the province has actually received any contact from the federal government that we may have to have a protocol where we may get involved in it.”

An official in the children’s ministry wasn’t aware of Ottawa’s communication.

Oppal said the B.C. teen was in Texas visiting a grandparent when authorities there raided the polygamist ranch and took more than 400 children into state custody.

“The child, we are told, doesn’t have any identification,” he said.

“The only thing we know is that the child has said that she is Canadian, and if that’s the case, then we’d be prepared to help her.”

The teen’s mother told The Canadian Press on Tuesday she has been trying to get her daughter out of Texas through channels that do not currently include Canadian governments.

The mother’s lawyer in Texas could not be reached for comment.

The mother lives in Bountiful, located in southeastern B.C. near Creston and about 740 kilometres east of Vancouver. Bountiful is located about one kilometre from the U.S. border and is also a polygamous colony.

The mother said her daughter did not go to Texas to marry an older man, and currently is not married. The Canadian Press is not identifying the mother in order to protect the identity of the daughter caught up in the child welfare investigation in Texas.

She would not answer when asked if there are more people with ties to Bountiful caught up in the situation at the Texas ranch.

Foreign Affairs has previously confirmed that one Canadian is involved in the child seizures in Texas, but provided no further details. Foreign Affairs could not be reached for further comment.

Both communities in Bountiful and Yearning For Zion in Texas belong to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which split with the mainstream Mormon church when it abandoned the practice of polygamy.

More than 400 children at the Texas ranch were apprehended by U.S. authorities and placed in temporary foster care after a teenage girl alleged her husband, believed to be a much older man, abused and sexually assaulted her.

Some former church members allege young women are transported across the Canada-U.S. border in both directions to marry older men in polygamous unions, but the B.C. mother said her daughter is not married and did not go to Texas to get married.

Oppal said the B.C. government is examining whether to launch a legal case in the B.C. Court of Appeal to determine if Canada’s current laws against polygamy can withstand a freedom of religious rights challenge in court.