British Columbia’s highest court is barring a polygamist sect from using the name of the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The province’s Supreme Court ruled Monday that Winston Blackmore’s fundamentalist sect cannot use the same title as that of the mainstream Mormon church.
Eden Engen is one of the media representatives for the Utah-based LDS Church in British Columbia. Blackmore is currently focusing on other legal battles and has agreed to comply with the court’s order, he said.
“To our knowledge, he’s been actually very compliant. I don’t want to make suppositions where they shouldn’t be made but he’s got a lot of other things on his plate, legally speaking,” Engen said. “I think this is probably the furthest from what’s important to him right now. He’s under some duress from the provincial government here in Canada for charges against him for polygamy and other things.”
The group is also prohibited from using the terms “Mormon” and “Latter-day Saints.” Blackmore, who lives near Creston, British Columbia, registered his church in 2010 as “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Inc.” It wasn’t until 2014, when the Utah-based church tried to register the same name in Canada, that the issue was discovered.
Mormons make up less than one percent of the entire population of Canada. Fundamentalist groups who use the same name can confuse the general public about the mainstream church, Engen said.
“As a percentage, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints represents a very small percentage of the Canadian population. Much smaller than what it might represent in the United States,” he said. “A lot of people don’t know much about the Church. So, anything that comes out in the media about another group that is using a name similar to [ours], it’s very easy for the public to draw incorrect conclusions.”
Blackmore’s group currently numbers around 500 people.
