Raw milk crusader slapped with fine, probation

Thursday, November 24, 2011

by SUSAN MANN

Durham-area farmer Michael Schmidt was fined $9,150 and placed on probation for one year after he was convicted earlier this year of 15 counts related to selling and distributing unpasteurized milk.

“I am not intending to pay the fine,” Schmidt says after his sentencing hearing in Newmarket Court Friday.

In September, Justice Peter Tetley overturned 15 of 19 acquittals on those charges Schmidt received in a lower court in 2010.

In an earlier interview, Schmidt’s lawyer Karen Selick of the Canadian Constitution Foundation said they plan to appeal Tetley’s decision. The foundation is non-profit charity with a mission to defend Canadians’ constitutional freedoms through education, communication and litigation.

Schmidt says they are appealing both the sentence and Tetley’s decision. The appeal will likely be heard sometime next year.

Under the Health Protection and Promotion Act it’s illegal for anyone to sell unpasteurized milk, also known as raw milk, because it is considered to be a health hazard. But it’s legal drink raw milk and many dairy farmers and their family members consume it on their farms.

In an earlier interview, Schmidt said he plans to continue fighting to legalize raw milk sales and distribution in Ontario.

Tetley rejected Schmidt’s argument that his cow share operation was a legitimate way to distribute raw milk to families who owned shares in the cows he managed. The province and Grey-Bruce Health Unit saw the operation as an unlawful attempt to circumvent the law’s intent.

It has been almost five years since Schmidt’s farm was raided in November 2006 by 24-armed officers from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ontario Provincial Police.

This is the second time Schmidt has been fined and put on probation for selling raw milk. In 1994 he pleaded guilty to raw milk sales and was convicted, fined $3,500 and placed on probation. BF