Winston Blackmore

Winston Blackmore is the leader of a polygamous Mormon fundamentalist group in Canada. He is described as "Canada’s best-known avowed polygamist".

For two decades, Blackmore was the bishop of the Bountiful, British Columbia, group of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS Church), a polygamist community in the Creston Valley. In September 2002, FLDS Church president Warren Jeffs excommunicated him. The community of Bountiful was split nearly in half—about 400 people followed Blackmore, with the rest following Jeffs. Blackmore would go on to found the Church of Jesus Christ (Original Doctrine) Inc.

Blackmore and another community leader, James Oler, were arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in January 2009 and charged with polygamy. The charges were thrown out later, owing to questions about how the Crown selected its prosecutors.

The case was reopened by the provincial government in 2014, with the B.C. Supreme Court confirming that polygamy is against the law in a constitutional case. Blackmore's lawyers attempted to appeal the case, which was overruled in May 2016. Blackmore's trial began on April 18, 2017.

As of August 1st, 2016, Blackmore has married 27 times and has over 145 children

He is the nephew of former Social Credit Party of Canada leader John Horne Blackmore who, though not a polygamist himself, was excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1947 for "teaching and advocating the doctrine of plural marriage". As an MP, the elder Blackmore urged Parliament to repeal the anti-polygamy law and succeeded in removing specific references to Mormons that had been in the law.

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