Special Broadcast Episode May 16, 2012

Green College Principal's Series: Craig Jones with "Trying Polygamy"

3:11am - 4:45am

Principal's Series: Thinking at the Edge of Reason / Interdisciplinarity in Action.

TRYING POLYGAMY: THE ISSUES AND OUTCOME OF REFERENCE RE: S.293 OF THE CRIMINAL CODE OF CANADA. Lecturer: Craig Jones, Constitutional & Administrative Law, BC Ministry of Justice. Coach House, Green College, UBC. April 10, 2012 5:00 pm - 6:30 pm

The recent polygamy reference case in the BC Supreme Court took 44 days of hearing, and had scores of witnesses, expert and individual, from all over North America. In the end, the Chief Justice declared that he had before him “the most comprehensive judicial record on the subject ever produced”, and held that polygamy’s harms outweighed the religious freedoms of the practice’s adherents. Craig Jones, lead counsel for the Attorney General of British Columbia (and a Green College Society Member) explains the unprecedented courtroom struggle over the constitutionality of s.293, Canada’s polygamy law, and the challenge of proving polygamy’s harms in the age of religious and sexual liberty.