by SUSAN MANN
It will be up to incoming Canadian Constitution Foundation executive director Marni Soupcoff to decide if the organization will try to take Michael Schmidt’s raw milk case to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Schmidt’s lawyer from the foundation, Derek From, says Schmidt was hasty in saying in news reports last week after losing an appeal at the Ontario Appeal Court that he plans to take the case to the Supreme Court.
“It will be up to the executive director for our continued involvement,” says From, noting Soupcoff joins the organization next week. But it’s possible for Schmidt to request leave to appeal to the Supreme Court on his own.
Schmidt couldn’t be reached for comment.
From adds the foundation still has to review the Ontario Appeal Court decision with its new executive director to determine “if there is anything we think is appealable.”
But From says “I suspect the Supreme Court will rubber stamp this (the Ontario Appeal Court) decision.”
The foundation is a registered charity that’s non-partisan, according to its website. Its mission is to defend the constitutional freedoms of Canadians through education, communication and litigation.
As for the Ontario Appeal Court decision handed down March 11, From says he thinks the Appeal Court got the law right, “which is problematic.” The Ontario Appeal Court unanimously decided that cow-share members do not have a constitutionally protected right to acquire raw milk to promote their own health, the foundation says in a news release.
The court upheld Schmidt’s prior conviction for the sale and distribution of unpasteurized milk and milk products under the Health Protection and Promotion Act and the Milk Act. The Health Protection and Promotion Act makes it illegal to sell or distribute raw milk but people can drink the milk from their own cows.
Schmidt was convicted of 13 charges in 2011 and ordered to pay a fine of $9,150. He was also given one year of probation. A year earlier, in 2010, Schmidt was acquitted of 19 charges leveled against him after government officials raided his farm in 2006. But the Ontario government appealed the 2010 decision issued by Justice of the Peace Paul Kowarsky.
The March 11 Appeal Court decision says Schmidt set up a cow share arrangement where customers would pay a fee of $300 to $1,200 for an interest in the herd. For example, $300 gave a member a one-quarter interest in a cow. Customers also paid a per litre charge for the milk for services related to keeping and milking the cows, bottling and transporting the milk. The herd had 24 cows and there were about 150 individual or family cow share members.
From says there has been 30 years of terrible decisions in Canada on matters dealing with Section Seven of the constitution’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section Seven gives everyone the right to life, liberty and security of person and the right to not have them taken away unless they’re removed according to the principles of fundamental justice.
“The precedents are almost all bad. It’s like getting a massive ship out in the ocean that’s been steered off course for 30 years back on course with one little readjustment. That’s very difficult,” From says.
In their decision, Ontario Appeal Court justices Robert J. Sharpe, K.M. Weiler and R.A. Blair noted that Justice Peter Tetley, who in 2011 convicted Schmidt of 13 of the original 19 charges, “went on to consider the charter arguments and concluded that there was no violation of the interests protected by Section 7 and that given the preponderance of scientific evidence as to the risk to public health posed by unpasteurized milk, the impugned legislation did not violate the principles of fundamental justice on the grounds that it was arbitrary or overbroad.”
The foundation says in its press release Schmidt raised three arguments but the appeal court rejected each one. One was the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms should safeguard a person’s right to choose how to protect and promote their own health when the choice they make doesn’t harm anyone else. Another argument was that neither the Health Protection and Promotion Act nor the Milk Act was intended to prohibit cow share programs.
The third argument was Schmidt’s liberty was violated by the Health Protection and Promotion Act and the Milk Act because he was being punished for entering into mutually agreeable cow share contracts with people who wanted to buy unpasteurized milk and milk products.
Graham Lloyd, Dairy Farmers of Ontario general counsel and communications director, couldn’t be reached for comment. BF
Comments
Why would the DFO comment on it? Really no need to.
Ontario and DFO really ought to consider the entrepreneurial opportunities that could open for farmers if they could do "value-added" on the farm, by making artisan cheeses, etc., as in other countries. A chance for the family farm to not only survive, but thrive. The current law, with DFO support, keeps this business strictly with big processors, blocking diversity and innovation.
Innovation can't mean going back in time to the "dirty" 30's and selling a product that was a known killer back then and certainly could be again.
Hopefully we have moved on since then but there are those that want to keep dragging us back, if they had their way we would be still milking cows by hand!!
the DFO is busy getting their own ducks in a line to market raw milk themselves I suspect. Milk consumption is falling and raw milk demand is increasing. How the gov't allows marijuana and bans raw milk is the ultimate contradiction in common sense.
I don't know how many people have died from marijuana use but unpasteurized milk has a long and deadly history.DFO doesn't need the liability of getting into something that modern medicine reguards as unsafe.
Apologists for the dairy supply quota system who are delighted with the Schmidt ruling, better think about how they'd feel if the govt. came 'round and told them they have no right to use and enjoy their own private property. Regardless of the bright lights atop the Ontario Ct of Appeal propping-up the Stalin-ist Milk Marketing Board cartel, demand by informed consumers is putting cooked milk out of biz. Sooner than later, we'll see PM Harper out on a raw milk dairy saying "these people never were criminals" ... like he did 2 years ago, referring to guys who'd gone to gaol for bringing to a head the illogic of the Cdn Wheat Marketing Board.
If you do a little research you will find that these laws are based on very bad science and even human error. Mostly it's modern farming practices that make unsafe milk.
Modern practices would make raw milk safer.
But still would not address TB and many other diseases.
Pasteurize your milk for Pete's Sakes !
If animals were kept in better environments, there would be less disease. I have my own dairy goats and they are kept in clean conditions, open air, room to roam. Keep the animals healthy and you will benefit. We test our animals for certain diseases as well. I would not drink raw milk from a large factory farm as most of the time these conditions are not realistic. But on a small scale it is perfectly healthy.
For Pete's sake! You wouldn't necessarily know if your seemly healthy looking animal was carrying Tuberculosis for one, or some disease. The graveyards are full of graves from children that died from drinking raw milk.A few years ago there was a small flock of very nice dairy goats that had a TB carrier in the flock. The family didn't know it for several months. Pasteurize your milk and Vaccinate your kids. It is only common sense!
Funny, most farms were small in the 1800's when Louis Pasteur discovered the principles of pasteurization.
The National Women's League lobbied and fought very hard to have the government of Canada make pasteurization mandatory in Canada saving thousands of children's lives.
Pasteurization has nothing to do with DFO, SM or farm size, it has everything to do with saving lives.
animals can appear healthy but be carriers of diseases, like Tuberculosis, , E-coli, and many other diseases.
Graveyards in the back of many family farms are filled with the graves of children who have died from raw milk, why on earth would we want to go back to burying our children from something we can prevent.
Kim Sytsma
We are very fortunate that there are now protocols in place to be able to produce safe healthy raw milk. I know first hand that farmers like Mr.Schmidt follow food safety protocols he has his milk tested every month at the Lab in Guelph and has his whole herd tested for TB and other diseases and he has food safety procedures in place just like every other raw milk farmer in Ontario does who has a cow share and there are lots of them. If Mr Schmidts raw milk is so unsafe then why after nearly 20 years he no one of the 100+ plus families been sicken by it ? I live in a community that is mostly made up of Amish and Mennonites and all of them drink their own raw milk and none of them are dying. Every other country in the world allows the sale of raw milk except Canada. Even the Queen and the Royal Family drinks raw milk daily are they some uneducated misinformed consumer, i think not. There is risk to every food we consume and we don`t live in a bubble, just like all other foods you need to have food safety procedures in mind.
I also believe that on his death bed that Louis Pasteur recanted on this theories about pasteurization and raw milk and felt he took it to far and a unfair reputation that it deserve. I also don't believe that all raw should be sold as raw milk for human consumption, just like all wheat or corn doesn't make food grade.
Sean McGivern
Like Mr. Schmidt l was a small dairy producer for 30+ years,however unlike him l tried to obey the laws of the land.I find it a little ironic if some immigrant of other nationality came to this country and deliberately tried to produce and sell a product that was illegal they would be looked at with scorn!
Over the years we had our city relatives come to the farm,the children always wanted to "shoot" milk from the cow and asked which cow doesn't kick,l would always say "they all do"! That is the trouble with cows,they don't follow any protocols,they don't know that they shouldn't kick the milker off into a manure filled gutter or all poop under the same shade tree that the herd wants to lay under on a hot summer day.Pigs may have a uncleanly reputation but only cows will poop and proceed to lay in it! No matter how many safeguards l don't believe any dairy farmer can guarentee their milk safe all the time.
My whole point being we have found a way to to keep milk wholesome,nutritional and safe from harmful pathogens, its called Pasteurization and it works very well.
..by the way, l sent the kids to milk my 12 year old cow named Rosie, she still had the potential to kick but the odds were against it..on that day her name was Killer.
I lived on a dairy farm all my life and always drank milk from the cans or the bulk tank. No one in our family ever got sick from raw milk.I don t know of anyone in our area Kim that did, and I m in the same area as you.
Everyone on your farm and mine was exposed to various bacteria etc. being around the cattle all their lives and had a chance to build up immunity.A 5 year old from Toronto, raised with dirt-phobic parents, never exposed to animals, not allowed to be dirty, given antibiotics every time they have a sniffle, doesn't have the luxury of having an immune system that's prepared for raw milk. Apples and oranges.
The myth that someone who has drank raw milk all their life is less likely to get sick from, Ecoli or Salmonella is simply not true, you can not build up an immunity to these bacteria. regardless if you live in Rural Ontario or in downtown Toronto. let's face very few farmers actually even eat their own food, very few farmers even grow a veg garden, and 2 years i was at a farm meeting i was asked to speak at in southern Ontario where the farmers were upset over slaughter plants closing and when i asked the room of 40 or so farmers how many people here took a beef or a hog to the butch shop in the last year only 4 raised their hands. For the most part farmers are eating the same sterile food our urban neighbors. urban people garden, have pets, to parks, and play grounds and are exposed to just as many bacteria as most farmers are, so lets end this foolish debate that farmers have stomachs of iron and can drink Ecoli infested milk and will be just fine thats simply not true and its never been true.
Sean McGivern
Practical Farmers of Ontario
No one may be immune to E Coli or Salmonella or even Listeria but the young with their immature immune systems and the elderly with their compromised systems are the greatest at risk.
I do believe that a persons immune system does play a part in it somewhat.There have been many cases of foodborne illnesses were not all the people that consumed the contaminated food became seriously ill.
There is not lots of farmers compare to the urban population so you have to look at the per thousand that got sick from raw milk farmers versus urban. So how many are getting sick more farmers or urban dwellers per thousand does any one knows, or are there just to many ones out there blowing off hot air.
I drank milk all my life from our farm and no sickness or death. But ask me if I would drink raw milk out of someone else farm, I would not for the reason I do not know how clean their equipment if the milk is kept at a safe temperature and so on. Least of all if its been pasteurized it would make it safe for drinking.
I do,
I for one would not buy raw milk from anyone or any thing made from raw milk. This year I had white and chocolate milk that was bad before the date and I wonder what it would be like buying raw milk in the store, it would be rotten as soon as they got it there. How much would it cost for someone to drive every other day to the farm to buy it and I,m talking just about the gas and the time not just the price of the jug of milk.
Define bad ?
i know of lots of people who like their milk to sour and then make culture products from it. Just because milk is sour doesn't make it bad.
Sean McGivern
Bad when I go to drink it is is rotten not sour, it smells like something dead period.
If you don't like raw milk then don't buy it. You are more than Free to make this decision for yourself.
Why do you bother to concern yourself about the time ,price or anything else that raw milk drinkers are willing to pay for a product that they wish to purchase? It really is none of your business.
Unless you think you are smarter than most people OR just have an alterior motive.
Maybe you are just full of gas.
Yes you likely would like the freedom to buy RAW Milk? People would like the Freedom to buy Cocaine so they should have the right, even if it kills you. So you think you are smarter than your average person tell someone laying at the funeral parlour that they had the Freedom to take the Dope or Drink the Raw Milk because they knew more than the majority of the people. People will sell drugs to kids and tell them it is safe and a few people will sell raw milk and say it is safe, so I guess you are saying if one person say it is safe IT MUST BE SAFE.
Are you the one that say it is Safe when everyone else say it is not.
This war that Mr.Schmidt fights has nothing to do with whether raw milk is safe for human consumption or whether it will cure the many ills that appear to inflict people in general.
It is instead, a war between one man that dares to confront the power and the might of a government and media supported cartel that has unending money and influence to devastate and reduce to mere rubble---a MAN--- that just wants to milk cows and sell his safe product to people that want to purchase it.
This is a WAR for the right to be able to produce and sell a product that a very rich cartel of multi millionaires do no want contested. If Mr. Schmidt was ever to win--It would not only affect dairy but also chicken and egg producers. Folks --do you realize that you are NOT allowed to sell any milk , few meat chicken or turkeys or even the eggs without paying an extortionist fee to someone that got that right for FREE.
People---If you ever in your life wanted to see a DAVID VS GOLIATH battle- this is it.
Pay Attention.
I read were the strain of E-coli that killed people in the Walkerton water tragedy is the same strain that can be present in raw milk.
I wonder if that has any influence in the Government to prosecute ?
You think !!
Especially, when you have absolutely No control over it. In your ever so perceptive mind - drinking raw milk from the cows is akin to drinking contaminated water from Walkerton.
People have the Free Choice to purchase raw Milk--- or NOT--- but you obviously know better. It must be nice to be so smart.
Or NOT.
I believe the whole story is about upholding the conviction of a man found guilty of illegally selling unpasteurized milk.If people really want the right to purchase raw milk then petition the Government and the Medical Profession but they have a mountain of evidence against its safety.
I had family members living in Walkerton for many years without having trouble with the water but it only took that one time..such is the case in raw milk, it only takes that one time!
Your comparison of drinking water in Walkerton to drinking raw milk is nothing short of stupid.
People in Walkerton didn't have a choice. It was City water. That is what was available. No choice.
Raw milk---educate yourself and then purchase it or not.
You really do have a free choice.
Some people will tell you that breastfeeding is detrimental to a child's health.
Let me say it once more,the same strain of E-coli that was present in the Walkerton water is the same strain of E-coli that can be found in raw milk !
The Government has spent a lot of money trying to see that the Walkerton tragedy never happens again,so why in the world would they want to legalize something that might just have the same consequences?
Its too bad that the people that comment on these sites about wanting raw milk legalized and freedom of choice are NOT the part of society that would suffer the most from an outbreak of illness due to raw milk...the Children! Much was the same before Pasteurization was mandated,it was children that filled the hospitals,they didn't have the choice, just the same as it would be now!
I drive, to a local farmer, and purchase 2doz. ungraded eggs [legal], and 2lbs. of raw milk cheese [legal]. I ask for one litre, of raw milk [illegal]. -- and the farmer, can't sell it to me. -- Keep in mind? that I "drove" to his property, to make this purchase. He didn't show up at my house!
I return to town, and purchase a litre of whole milk. Ingredients noted, are "milk, and vitamin D3" -- In fact, the D3 synthetic vitamin addititive, at 45%, is the largest percentage Nutritionial Fact, on the box. I know, that I'm basically buying "white water", that has already been stripped by the Dairy Processor of it's natural nutrients. --They took that, with the removal of the cream, and butterfat, for more money to be made, before I even bought the milk. [Ice cream & cheese] -- but here again? It is my choice, of purchase.
I've one more item to buy, to feed my addictive habit, before I leave the grocery store. -- A [legal] package of cigarettes! Labelled by Health Canada, that it is detrimental to my health, and then greedyly taxed by the Government, to make sure that I pay for it, in the process. -- Here again? It is my choice of purchase.
The question is? "Why am I not given, the same choice, to purchase, in both locations?" - and, Under the Milk Act? Why can't I sign a release waiver, to the Farmer, to remove, both him, and the Government,, from their responsibility of liability, concerning my health, due to this purchase?--My choice. My purchase!
"Raw Milk" is not forced fed, nor does it come out of a "water tap." You have to go looking for it, to even "ask" if you can even purchase it. -- You should, have the choice, to do so, if you care too. -- This is just my opinion, which will be one of many. --- Pat, from Hanover
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