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Decrimilalize Raw Milk! (c)
Mar. 8th, 2017 12:44 pma href="http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/ontario-keeps-spending-a-fortune-prosecuting-a-farmer-whos-hurt-no-one-and-keeps-selling-his-milk">Ontario keeps spending a fortune prosecuting a farmer who’s hurt no one and who keeps selling his milk
Karen Selick, Special to Financial Post | March 6, 2017
Ontario is planning to waste more money this week prosecuting raw-milk advocate Michael Schmidt.
For 23 years, the province and some of its municipalities have waged war against Schmidt and Glencolton Farm, where he and others produce the unpasteurized milk that buyers want. Officials have repeatedly raided the farm, seized equipment, dragged Schmidt and others into court, fined him, spied on him and otherwise attempted to intimidate him.
This week, a five-day trial is occurring for Schmidt and two others, for allegedly obstructing a peace officer on Oct. 2, 2015. That day, when authorities attempted to execute yet another raid on the farm, approximately 50 people — co-owners of the farm co-operative — gathered to oppose police, in part by parking a tractor across the driveway, preventing the removal of equipment.
Still other legal action is pending against Schmidt and other members of his co-op: an injunction application seeking, once again, to shut down the raw-dairy operation. Two days are scheduled for that hearing at the end of May.
How much money has Ontario spent going after this raw-milk co-op for 23 years?
It has all been to no avail: The farm continues to produce fresh, unpasteurized milk daily, and co-op members continue to consume raw dairy products — knowingly, happily, and eagerly.
It’s time for Ontario to do a cost-benefit analysis on these prosecutions.
How much money has the province spent on courts and cops going after this raw-milk operation these 23 years? And what has it got to show for it?
Full disclosure: from 2010 to 2013, I was Schmidt’s lawyer. I remain his friend. A few years ago, I tried to unearth via freedom of information requests how much the various governments had spent on legal fees. One municipality admitted having spent $138,000 on outside lawyers. The province itself, which used in-house lawyers (and plenty of them) to prosecute Schmidt, claimed it couldn’t tell me what the cost had been, supposedly because the lawyers didn’t keep time dockets on criminal or regulatory cases where they never expected to receive court costs. Hmm… sounds fishy. But I wouldn’t waste my own scarce resources challenging it.
The truth is, they probably don’t know. It’s highly unlikely that anyone in the Ontario government has ever attempted to tease out and compile the necessary information from the Ministry of Natural Resources, the constitutional law branch of the attorney general’s office, the Ontario Court of Justice, the Superior Court, the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court of Canada, the Ontario Provincial Police, four separate municipalities, and sundry other bureaucracies. Each agency itself probably has no idea what amount it has spent prosecuting Schmidt because that’s not how they organize their financial records.
My guess, however — having observed first-hand the many lawyers, judges, tribunals, court reporters, court clerks, expert witnesses, police officers and civil servants involved during my years on the case, and extrapolating from there — is that the province’s costs have got to be well over $2 million by now. And the main thing that’s achieved is giving Michael Schmidt extra publicity. With news of every prosecution, more and more people wonder what’s so great about unpasteurized milk, and whether they should try to get some.
In Europe, authorities have taken a different approach. Over the past decade, three major studies involving approximately 24,000 children have demonstrated that drinking unpasteurized milk in childhood results in a 41-per-cent lower risk of asthma, a 49-per-cent lower risk of hay fever and a 30-per-cent lower risk of respiratory infections and fever.
Canadian authorities allege that drinking raw milk can be dangerous, even fatal — but so can asthma and respiratory infections. The Asthma Society of Canada estimates that 20 Canadian children and 500 adults die from asthma attacks every year. In 25 years, no-one has ever died from, or even gotten sick from raw milk produced by Glencolton Farm.
Ontario outlawed unpasteurized milk almost 80 years ago. The ensuing years have witnessed enormous advances in food-safety science, microbial testing, hygiene, refrigeration and transportation — all of which make raw milk much safer than it was in 1939.
I’m not ordinarily one to advocate government regulation, but legalizing raw milk would allow the money currently being squandered on police action and legal prosecutions to be spent instead ensuring that standards of food safety were being met for those consumers who insist on having raw milk. The choice is clear.
Karen Selick is a lawyer and commentator.
Karen Selick, Special to Financial Post | March 6, 2017
Ontario is planning to waste more money this week prosecuting raw-milk advocate Michael Schmidt.
For 23 years, the province and some of its municipalities have waged war against Schmidt and Glencolton Farm, where he and others produce the unpasteurized milk that buyers want. Officials have repeatedly raided the farm, seized equipment, dragged Schmidt and others into court, fined him, spied on him and otherwise attempted to intimidate him.
This week, a five-day trial is occurring for Schmidt and two others, for allegedly obstructing a peace officer on Oct. 2, 2015. That day, when authorities attempted to execute yet another raid on the farm, approximately 50 people — co-owners of the farm co-operative — gathered to oppose police, in part by parking a tractor across the driveway, preventing the removal of equipment.
Still other legal action is pending against Schmidt and other members of his co-op: an injunction application seeking, once again, to shut down the raw-dairy operation. Two days are scheduled for that hearing at the end of May.
How much money has Ontario spent going after this raw-milk co-op for 23 years?
It has all been to no avail: The farm continues to produce fresh, unpasteurized milk daily, and co-op members continue to consume raw dairy products — knowingly, happily, and eagerly.
It’s time for Ontario to do a cost-benefit analysis on these prosecutions.
How much money has the province spent on courts and cops going after this raw-milk operation these 23 years? And what has it got to show for it?
Full disclosure: from 2010 to 2013, I was Schmidt’s lawyer. I remain his friend. A few years ago, I tried to unearth via freedom of information requests how much the various governments had spent on legal fees. One municipality admitted having spent $138,000 on outside lawyers. The province itself, which used in-house lawyers (and plenty of them) to prosecute Schmidt, claimed it couldn’t tell me what the cost had been, supposedly because the lawyers didn’t keep time dockets on criminal or regulatory cases where they never expected to receive court costs. Hmm… sounds fishy. But I wouldn’t waste my own scarce resources challenging it.
The truth is, they probably don’t know. It’s highly unlikely that anyone in the Ontario government has ever attempted to tease out and compile the necessary information from the Ministry of Natural Resources, the constitutional law branch of the attorney general’s office, the Ontario Court of Justice, the Superior Court, the Ontario Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court of Canada, the Ontario Provincial Police, four separate municipalities, and sundry other bureaucracies. Each agency itself probably has no idea what amount it has spent prosecuting Schmidt because that’s not how they organize their financial records.
My guess, however — having observed first-hand the many lawyers, judges, tribunals, court reporters, court clerks, expert witnesses, police officers and civil servants involved during my years on the case, and extrapolating from there — is that the province’s costs have got to be well over $2 million by now. And the main thing that’s achieved is giving Michael Schmidt extra publicity. With news of every prosecution, more and more people wonder what’s so great about unpasteurized milk, and whether they should try to get some.
In Europe, authorities have taken a different approach. Over the past decade, three major studies involving approximately 24,000 children have demonstrated that drinking unpasteurized milk in childhood results in a 41-per-cent lower risk of asthma, a 49-per-cent lower risk of hay fever and a 30-per-cent lower risk of respiratory infections and fever.
Canadian authorities allege that drinking raw milk can be dangerous, even fatal — but so can asthma and respiratory infections. The Asthma Society of Canada estimates that 20 Canadian children and 500 adults die from asthma attacks every year. In 25 years, no-one has ever died from, or even gotten sick from raw milk produced by Glencolton Farm.
Ontario outlawed unpasteurized milk almost 80 years ago. The ensuing years have witnessed enormous advances in food-safety science, microbial testing, hygiene, refrigeration and transportation — all of which make raw milk much safer than it was in 1939.
I’m not ordinarily one to advocate government regulation, but legalizing raw milk would allow the money currently being squandered on police action and legal prosecutions to be spent instead ensuring that standards of food safety were being met for those consumers who insist on having raw milk. The choice is clear.
Karen Selick is a lawyer and commentator.
