Two former religious sect leaders have been found guilty of polygamy, following a decades-long legal battle.
Winston Blackmore, 60, and James Oler, 53, are from Bountiful in south-eastern British Columbia, a tiny religious community of about 1,500 people which was founded in 1946.
Both Blackmore and Oler were found guilty of polygamy by British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Sheri Ann Donegan. She said the evidence was outstanding that Blackmore was married to 25 women at the same time, while Oler was married to five.
Blackmore has said throughout the case that his religious beliefs call for 'celestial' marriages and he never denied having several wives. His lawyer, Blair Suffredine, has already said the 60-year-old would challenge the constitutionality of Canada's polygamy laws if his client was found guilty.
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"I'm guilty of living my religion and that's all I'm saying today because I've never denied that," Blackmore told reporters after the verdict. "27 years and tens of millions of dollars later, all we've proved is something we've never denied. I've never denied my faith. This is what we expected."
Justice Donegan said the 'collective force of the evidence'' proved without a doubt that both men, who were practising members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, were guilty.
"[Blackmore's] adherence to the practices and beliefs of the FLDS is not in dispute,'' Donegan said, in a Cranbrook, BC courtroom, adding that his client "would not deny his faith in his 2009 statement to police. He spoke openly about his practice of polygamy.
He continued: "Mr Blackmore confirmed that all of his marriages were celestial marriages in accordance with FLDS rules and practices."
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Blackmore hopes that his constitutional challenge of the ruling will bring about change.
"Twenty-seven years ago, adultery was a criminal act. When they started with us, same-sex marriage was criminal,'' he said.
"Those people all successfully launched constitutional challenges on the basic right to freely associate. For us, I imagine it will be [that] this is entrenched in our faith and I would have been hugely disappointed if I would have been found not guilty of living my religion.''
The two men were first prosecuted during an investigation launched in the early 1990s by the provincial government.
Both Blackmore and Oler remain on bail at the time of writing. The maximum sentence for practicing polygamy in is five years behind bars.
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