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Farmer battles dumb milk law
This law kind of reminds me of the same kind of law that they tried to pass to ban sushi.
If these guys want to buy this milk, why shouldnt they be able to?
| quote: | TORONTO (CP) - A hunger-striking Ontario farmer who ran afoul of decades-old legislation forbidding the sale of raw milk found himself at the centre of a standoff with police and public health authorities Tuesday when they surrounded a bus from which he sells organic food.
Michael Schmidt said he had parked his bus in a suburban parking lot north of Toronto when he found himself surrounded by a phalanx of police officers and public health inspectors. He refused to let police board the bus because they did not have a search warrant.
"They kind of stood around the whole bus for probably over an hour," Schmidt said. "Finally, they left."
The show of force came one week after Schmidt's farm near Durham, Ont., about 45 kilometres south of Owen Sound, was raided last week by Ministry of Natural Resources inspectors - a raid that has made him a cause celebre for those who favour natural foods.
He's also become a lightning rod for the anger of farmers who say they're fed up with heavy-handed bureaucracy.
Schmidt, 52, hasn't consumed anything but water and raw milk since the raid, and said he intends to keep up his week-old hunger strike until authorities return his confiscated equipment and promise to leave him alone.
"This is a battle out of principle. This is a battle that people gain respect again for the farmer," he said.
"When there is a law which is unjust and which claims that the milk is OK as long as the farmer drinks it, but the milk is dangerous as soon as it crosses the road, that law doesn't make sense."
Schmidt, who came to Canada from southern Germany 24 years ago, was scheduled to spend Wednesday - Day 7 of his hunger strike - making his case at a downtown Toronto restaurant owned by celebrity chef and supporter Jamie Kennedy.
Schmidt's farm was raided last week by 20 armed Ministry of Natural Resources officers; he blames "ego-tripping bureaucrats" for what he considers an excessive show of force. He said he'll remain on his hunger strike until he's reimbursed for his losses, authorities agree to leave him alone and everything taken from his farm is returned.
"It's every citizen's responsibility to oppose an unjust law," he said. "It's a moral responsibility from responsible citizens."
Canadian health authorities say unpasteurized milk can contain potentially lethal E. coli, salmonella or other dangerous organisms. Federal law prevents the sale or giving away of unpasteurized milk in Canada, and Ontario's own Milk Act contains a similar ban.
"There has been a law in Ontario that any milk sold to the public has to be pasteurized that's been on the books since the 1930s," said Agriculture Minister Leona Dombrowsky.
"It's important that it's there. It's there for a good reason."
Proponents say raw milk offers health benefits, and is safe as long as the farmer is careful in its handling.
Following his last run-in with authorities in 1994, when he was convicted, Schmidt changed his tack to take advantage of a loophole in the Milk Act that allows farmers to drink raw milk from their own cows.
He now has 150 cow-shareholders - each buys a share of a cow for $300, and pays $2 a litre for the milk their animal produces - which include members of Ontario Finance Minister Greg Sorbara's family.
Shareholder Judith McGill, of Richmond Hill, Ont., just north of Toronto, called the bust "outrageous."
"We prefer to buy our foods through farmers; we want to have a relationship with the farmer," McGill said. "This is a foolproof system: to buy food from people you know and trust."
The Ontario Landowners Association, a group that aims to preserve a rural way of life it sees as increasingly under attack, has also rallied to Schmidt's cause.
"This is just another example of government's thirst to control each and every aspect of people's lives in this country and creating regulations that provide no value to anybody," association president Randy Hillier said from near Ottawa.
"We are not going to take this intrusion and this removal of our freedoms lightly. We are going to stand and defend ourselves."
Members and fellow farmers were ready to guard Schmidt's farm should authorities try another raid, Hillier said.
Schmidt said he was flabbergasted by the day-long raid that he said left him feeling as if he were a dangerous criminal.
"This time it was an army attack, literally," Schmidt said.
"It's just milk!" |
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| quote: | Originally posted by jester
Everything in this country is illegal. |
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery…" Winston Churchill
"If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law" - Winston Churchill
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yummy
