This went out to Michael Schmidt’s Cow Share holders and supporters about yesterday’s trial:
And what a day it was. There were at least 60 people in court this morning supporting Michael as he read his opening statement- see below. There were lots of media as well, including CBC and Global, Toronto Sun, Toronto Star, and the Canadian Press. There were at least three media folks to my knowledge that stayed all day as they didn’t have to leave in order to post their stories. Michael was on CBS Radio this morning and will be on CBC television sometime this week. Michael was in fine spirits all day.
I was struck this afternoon at how dispassionate, York regions health unit’s lawyer and health officials seemed. I am not sure their heart is in all of this. The judge seems to be fair minded and is willing to take time to explain procedural things to Michael. As the York Regional Health Units lawyer entered his evidence (taken directly from the affidavit- that is on the Glencolton website) into the record he had the Director of Health Protections read it to the court room. This felt very strange and there was this bittersweet irony of having the individual who authored the contempt order have to read aloud from Michaels update letters to the cowshare members. After each letter he would read Michael’s sign off- cheers, Michael or respectfully, Michael.
So far, the lawyer has called only two of four of our cowshare members as witnesses and the Director of Health Promotions for York Region. Michael will have a chance to cross examine the Director first thing tomorrow morning. He also showed the 4 minute surveillance video that was taken at the blue bus last January as an attempt to show that Michael was in fact on the blue bus.
I would encourage as many other people as possible to come out over the next two days to show Michael their support and share in this once in a lifetime experience. It is truly astounding to be there while history is being made.
Judith
The Bovine 
I was in court on Day One for the Contempt of Court Trial, and was questioned by the prosecutor Dan Kuzmyk. During our (at times amusing) dialogue, I was quite shocked to discover something. Mr. Kuzmyk could not define “pasteurization” for me. When I asked him to define the word for me, he hedged, and said he was not a scientist. He asked for my definition. Truthfully, the definition of the word “pasteurization” should not be incumbent on me, but rather on Mr. Kuzmyk since he introduced the word into our dialogue. Beyond our dialogue, Michael Schmidt’s contempt of court charges are predicated on the distribution of unpasteurized milk, viz. milk that is not pasteurized. Shouldn’t the prosecutor know the definition of the issue at hand, or at least sufficiently to explain it to me? ….after all another man’s freedom is at stake, the very man Mr. Kusmyk is prosecuting for distributing unpasterized milk!
But back to our dialogue, between Kuzmyk and myself … I offered forth a weak definition of pasteurization to help out Mr. Kuzmyk. I suggested pasteurization was heating up the milk, and while trying to remember in my mind what degrees it is heated to or what I could say to suggest the temperatures (F or C) (check out Wikipedia…the process is interesting, and the answer is not necessarily straightforward) the definition, “milk that is heated” stuck. Kuzmyk eventually threw into the definition, that some bacteria is killed. (Just as an aside, some interesting tests on raw milk have been done but that information will be left for another day.) When I came home that evening, I mentioned this definition of “milk that is heated” to my daughter, and she said that under that definition milk that comes out of a cow’s udder is warm, therefore heated and thus pasteurized. Hark! I heard a reference to that latter comment in Michael’s closing statement regarding the question of milk being pasteurized or not, coming out of the cow. In one light, if we define pasteurization as sterilization process, raw milk handled properly and from the cow directly, is as pure as you can get it. Food for thought!
Finally, I would like to add that Michael Schmidt is an exceptionally admirable farmer, as are all the people, both exceptional and admirable, who work for Glencolton Farms. I thank them for bringing this wholesome product to us, the cow share holders….where it finds it way into our fridges and finally into each one’s glass. Yum!
Thank you Michael, and thank you to everyone at Glencolton Farms.
I’m proud to be a cow hugger. Have you hugged your cow today?
Interesting point there Shirley Anne. Ideally a lawyer would want to know in advance the correct answer to a question he was asking of a witness, except I guess in the case where he was hoping to learn something new from the witness’ expertise, which I somehow doubt was the case here.
Shirley Ann,
I attended the court on the first day of the trial, as I am four hours east of Toronto. I was only able to stay until the lunch break, but must tell you how impressed I was with your testimony! You did a wonderful job! As you said, at times, it was very entertaining! As I grinned with some of the comments, I couldn’t help but notice that His Honour also was grinning.
I have to say, that as while you and Kuzmyk were in your dialogue about the “heated milk” I too thought of the fact that it is warm when it comes out of the cow. I agree with you that it was incumbent upon him (Kuzmyk) to be able to define pasteurization, as this was the main issue at hand.
Hats off to you Shirley Ann, a strong woman who is very devoted to Anna and the folks at Glencolton Farms.
Thank you to this blog for keeping those of us too far away to attend court, fully abreast of what was going on!
Last but not least, thank you to Michael and the others at Glencolton for taking on this fight for all of us to make our own food choices! We are all freedom fighters!
Personally i think you should not be limited to what you want to drink. Yes, there are saftey reasons behind this non-pasturizing issue, but you must think to yourself some poeple might actully prefeer to take the risk of illness if it benifits them emediatly.
from, a 15 year old kid who cant even believe somthing so stupid could even make it to court.
ps. sorry 4 the spelling errors