Sept 11 Press Roundup

It would be nice to think that we were having our very own “truth commission” up in the courthouse on Eagle Street on this anniversary of what is more and more coming to be regarded as the most egregious “false-flag operation” in recent history.

All three Toronto papers published stories today reporting on the opening day of Michael Schmidt’s contempt of court trial. The Globe and Mail ran a story on page A7 from Canadian Press reporter Tamsyn Burgmann outlining the whole context of the case and giving detail on cowshare member Shirley Anne Wood’s testimony about her brown cow Anna. She quotes Shirley Anne saying “I can visit Anna. I can give her a hug if I wish.” She continues: “I’ve gone and helped clear her bedding and I also receive milk.”

The story doesn’t mention how, at the trial, Shirley Anne’s testimony was excruciatingly laboured — she was being extremely careful with her answers and demanded explanations and clarifications from counsel on numerous points. It seemed she was on the verge of being declared a hostile or uncooperative witness.

The Toronto Star had perhaps the most lavish coverage, with a top-of-page story on A10 from Megan Ogilvie. Megan’s story gave a lot of ink to the potential health hazard angle of the whole raw milk controversy and quoted York Region counsel Dan Kuzmyk as saying in a private interview “If someone were to get sick like the unfortunate cases in Quebec, someone could then turn around and say to the region, “You guys knew, you knew , what was going on and you did nothing,’ ” he said.

Dan Kuzmyk’s expressed concern over the health of raw milk drinkers in York Region is especially interesting in view of the fact that a cow share member under cross examination by Michael Schmidt revealed that although it was clear York Region Health had his email address because they used it to call him as a witness, he had never received any message from York Region Health advising him that he was in danger from drinking raw milk. And in fact, all the issues around whether raw milk is a health benefit or a health hazard are very much excluded from the present proceedings, which focus solely on whether Michael Schmidt is in contempt of court over failure to comply with a cease and desist order.

The Sun runs its story by Brett Clarkson, headlined “‘Jail does not scare me’: Dairy Farmer”, at the bottom of a page dominated by a nearly-full-page “Hurt by listeria hysteria” story which focuses on Toronto hot dog vendors and Maple Leaf Foods and announces in a subheading “Outbreak’s death toll hits 15-13 in Ontario”.  The raw milk story reveals how, even now, raw milk continues to be available to cow share members and goes into considerable detail on how the cow share arrangement works. According to this story, Michael Schmidt has been providing unpasteurized milk for 35 years.

Probably not all of that was in Canada, since Michael only moved here in 1983. However the juxtaposition with the listeria story does seem to play up the potential health hazard status claimed by health officials as the reason raw milk is not legal for non-dairy farmers.