It’s Even Worse Here Than in the United States of the Americas.

Canada’s age related and gender, racial, social, inequality problems are even worse than those of the United States of the Americas.

For a country so self-satisfied with its image of progressive tolerance, how is this not a national crisis?

The racial mess in the United States of the Americas looks grim and is painful to watch.

We on the other hand can be forgiven for being quietly thankful for Canada’s more inclusive society, which has avoided dramas like that in Ferguson, Mo. We are not the only ones to think this. In the recently released Social Progress Index, Canada is ranked second amongst all nations for its tolerance and inclusion.

Unfortunately, the truth is we have far more prejudice and far worse racial/religious intolerance problems than even the United States of the Americas. We just cannot or rather choose to not to see it all very easily [see my previous postings].

Now, I will get down to what this posting is all about Canada’s wholly unjustified prejudice and holier than thou attitude towards other countries, cultures peoples, religions.

The Taxman Defeats Winston Blackmore, Polygamous Leader of Bountiful

Court orders embattled leader to pay $150,000 in penalties.

For nearly two years, the RCMP had also been investigating allegations that fundamentalist Mormon leaders, including 49-year-old Blackmore, have been sexually exploiting girls as young as 14 by either assigning them as plural wives to other men or taking them for themselves.

The leaders of the breakaway fundamentalist Mormon sect of Bountiful, B.C. have managed to avoid a successful criminal prosecution in all the years since it was founded in the mid-1940s, while openly practising polygamy and despite troubling allegations of forced underage marriages and child sexual exploitation. However, that run of luck has ended for Winston Blackmore, its high-profile bishop.

In the end, shades of Al Capone and Elliot Ness, it was the taxman who did him in—and more trouble may be on the horizon.

In a Federal Tax Court ruling, Justice Diane Campbell rejected Blackmore’s claims that the community of Bountiful, or at least the portion recognising his leadership, constitutes a communal religious organization eligible for tax exemption. Campbell ruled that Blackmore underreported his income by some $1.8 million during a five-year period starting in 2000, a time when his declared annual income rarely exceeded $30,000. Not only will he have to pay taxes on the higher amount, he faces a penalty of almost $150,000 for hiding his income.

Winston Blackmore, described as a bishop in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is fighting allegations of under-reporting business income in 2000-06.

While the Tax Court of Canada case is ostensibly about taxation, it provides a rare insight into life in Bountiful, a breakaway group from mainstream Mormonism, and a landmark The Taxman Defeats Winston Blackmore, Polygamous Leader of Bountiful

Court orders embattled leader to pay $150,000 in penalties

For nearly two years, the RCMP had also been investigating allegations that fundamentalist Mormon leaders, including 49-year-old Blackmore, have been sexually exploiting girls as young as 14 by either assigning them as plural wives to other men or taking them for themselves.

The leaders of the breakaway fundamentalist Mormon sect of Bountiful, B.C. have managed to avoid a successful criminal prosecution in all the years since it was founded in the mid-1940s, while openly practising polygamy and despite troubling allegations of forced underage marriages and child sexual exploitation. However, that run of luck has ended for Winston Blackmore, its high-profile bishop.

In the end, shades of Al Capone, it was the taxman who did him in—and more trouble may be on the horizon.

In a Federal Tax Court ruling, Justice Diane Campbell rejected Blackmore’s claims that the community of Bountiful, or at least the portion recognising his leadership, constitutes a communal religious organization eligible for tax exemption. Campbell ruled that Blackmore underreported his income by some $1.8 million during a five-year period starting in 2000, a time when his declared annual income rarely exceeded $30,000. Not only will he have to pay taxes on the higher amount, he faces a penalty of almost $150,000 for hiding his income.

Winston Blackmore, described as a bishop in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, is fighting allegations of under-reporting business income in 2000-06.

While the Tax Court of Canada case is ostensibly about taxation, it provides a rare insight into life in Bountiful, a breakaway group from mainstream Mormonism.

It also serves to point out, rather strongly and undeniably—life in Canada does not really differ that much from life in the Middle East. We too have (our own brand of) radicals, terrorists and dangerous dictators.© Al (Alex-Alexander) D. Girvan. All rights reserved.