Here’s that link again to James McLaren’s petition in which he and his co-signers “petition the Government” to allow for the legal sale of raw milk in Ontario. This petition could be an important first step towards legal raw milk. Download the file. Print it out, sign it, get your friends to sign it, then mail it to James McLaren (address on petition).
In the following account, Karen Selick of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, tells about her own experience of writing to a Government representative with a view to opening a dialog about raw milk on behalf of her clients Michael Schmidt and James McLaren:
Karen Selick talks to TV reporters outside the Ontario Legislature in November of 2009
On November 9, 2009, on the instructions of Michael Schmidt and James McLaren, I wrote to the Ontario Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (Leona Dombrowsky — who also happens to be my own MPP) suggesting that a dialogue be opened with a view to amending the law and regulations to allow consumers to purchase safe, legal, unpasteurized milk. Here’s a copy of my two-page letter. You’ll note that we were asking for the opportunity to meet with the Minister to discuss changing the law.
In late December, 2009 I received a letter back from Ms. Dombrowsky (see copy here) indicating that she would not meet with me because “the specific subject matter of your e-mail is before the courts at this time.”
As readers can see for themselves, this was a very feeble excuse to avoid dealing with the issue. My letter to Ms. Dombrowsky did not contain even the remotest suggestion that I or my clients were seeking to have her intervene in the outcome of the trial. On the contrary, we were asking her to consider CHANGES to the legislation. That is something completely different and unrelated to the question of whether or not Michael Schmidt will be found guilty of an offence under current legislation. It is also unrelated to whether or not the current legislation will be found constitutional.
Page one of Karen Selick's letter
Page two of Karen Selick's letter
Agriculture Minister Leona Dombrowsky's reply.
Readers of The Bovine who are unfamiliar with the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) can find out more information about us on our website, here: http://www.canadianconstitutionfoundation.ca/ If you are interested in helping fund Michael Schmidt’s legal fees, click the button that says “Donate to the CCF”.
And once again, here’s the link to James McLaren’s petition to legalize raw milk in Ontario.
The Bovine 
Dear Karen Selick,
Since you seem to be on a trail that I have been on I will share a shortened version of my journeyp on the subject of political suport from the politicians.
Something that you should know to start with is that I created the Independent Dairy and Ice Cream Association and was its political spokes person. It took the government fifteen days to get rid of my company of more than thirty three years, one that had no product recalls.
In 1997 the bureaucrats put together an unwritten policy and forced the closure of my legal processing milk plant, which was the last independently owned dairy in Western Ontario and the second last in all of Southwestern Ontario. They simply had the Milk Marketing Board stop shipping milk to my plant
I tried to meet with the Milk Marketing Board, but John Core their chairman said that they did not have to deal with small dairies because through the quota system they have a guarantee of sales and the board does not need small dairies.
Despite my repeated attempts to arrange a meeting, the Farm Products Marketing Commission who imposed the phantom policy on me has not made time for this, and I am still waiting .
As well, I tried to get the attention of Helen Johns the then Minister of Agriculture and my local representitive, several times , still no meeting.
Then when the Liberals were newly elected, I met with the new Assistant Minister of Agriculture Carol Mitchell, who is my local representitive and left her a package. She said she would look into the matter. I called her office nine months later to be told that they lost the package. I had delivered her office another package. During the last provincial election I was at every town hall meeting asking all nominees if they were elected, would they look into the closing of the last local dairy. At the Formosa town hall meeting, Carol Mitchell stated that she could not do this as the matter was in litigation. This is the first and the last time that I heard it was in litigation.
I then met with Minister of Agriculture Steve Peters who did start to look into this and he gave me information, but he was replaced by Mrs. Dombrowsky who listened and suggested that I take legal action against the Marketing Board. My money against the government’s? I knew what my chances were. She also she was good enough to have her staff look into this and they instructed me that I have to go before the Tribunal for this.
The Tribunal told me that I did not have a dairy any more so they did not have to deal with the issue.
I have tons of official documents showing corruption, but know that it all points to a battle with the very bureaucrats that did this to me and they are still running the government.
I hope this helps you in your endeavour.
Bernie
Still One Vote
Karen Selick,
A follow up to my previous blog ….
In the eighties the bigger dairies were killing the smaller ones in Ontario through a policy loop hole provided by the OFPMC. I was delivering milk out side my allowed geographical area to independent stores that were trying to stay alive against the preditory pricing of large corporations. The OFPMC let me know that if I did not stop going outside my territory to help the independents, they would instruct the OMMB to stop shipping milk to my dairy. SO on the advice of the Director of dairy inspection team, Richard Bird, I stopped going outside my territory and applied for a licence in these new territories. I did not receive the license and spent great amounts of time trying through the proper channals to no avail to get this license.
As demonstrated on previous blogs and with Michael’s endevors you will find the same thing that I went through. With the growing support of most of Ontario’s remaining small processors I approached the then Liberal Minister of Agriculture, Jack Ridell and he ordered the OFPMC to change policy to help the independents. This lead Bill Moore directer of the milk and cream fund to let me know that I had gotten my way this time but to remember Ministers come and Ministers go and that he would still be there. A few years later he made up the phantom policy under the Conservative government’s watch that closed Sun Rise Dairy and no politician from any stripe cared.
I/you have one vote against thousands of civil servant votes, easy math it is only when the media gets involved that justice will prevale as the public is finicky with its votes. Now you are talking millions of votes.
John Core the former chairman of the Ontario Milk Marketing Board said that the farmers do not need small dairies as the milk is a food staple and the public has to buy it at any price with any label on the container and he turned out to be right.
Not meaning to dampen the situation that Michael is in, but meaning to say out loud, watch every thing around you not just the foe in front
Still one vote
Bernie
Hi there
You mentioned corruption.
How about something even bigger, like, you do not own what you think you own, not even the name you believe is your name.
The name you believe is your name that is in fact not your name is recognized in law, not you.
That’s right, the government has jurisdiction over what you believe is your name but not you; however, absent knowledge, we believe the government (a fiction) has the authority to tell us (non-fictions) people what to do.
What the significance is, assets and liabilities are accounted in a name that in fact is not your name so why are people held as owners of that what they do not own and for liabilities that are in fact not theirs because none of it is in the name you believe is your name.
Seems crazy but it is not. The question is, why is this information not disclosed.
See point 28 – 31 under Birth Certificates, of the European Court of Human Rights case; Sheffield and Horsham v. The United Kingdom
I wish the best of luck to Michael Schmidt and am interested as to how I might be able to help with your cause.
Henry Roth
I wish the best to Michael . We need people like him . I’m peruvian and I drank raw milk as a child . My dad was a farmer and we know how good is to eat and drink just from the land to the table.
Please keep me inform about this good cause .
Also
Hi , I also would like to know where I can buy raw milk . I live in whitby , onatrio.
Thank you very much.
I do not want the government telling me what to eat or not eat. It is my decision and mine alone. The government is too corrupt to have any credibility in these issues.
I am living with my family in Toronto and we need to drink only raw milk and for this I support Micheal. There are many sufficient scientific documents and endless examples of people consume raw milk with better health result.
April 24,2011
Please send info. on what can be done to support you.
I still support Michael morally and with cash.. good luck
A small group of shareholders investing in their own cows for the purpose of the right to choose what they personally want to consume as a healthier choice of milk, is not harming the mass market or the public as a whole. It is simply their own choice to consume raw milk as it is to eat food from an organic garden or not to eat from an organic garden.
Many people have to rent a garden plot for the purpose of growing a garden and shareholders investing and keeping their cows in the care of a responsible person who they trust is no different in my mind.
This is about a Democratic choice that isn’t effecting nor harming the public of this country, and isn’t being sold on the mass market.
If finally the right to drink raw milk produced for a small group of people who each own their own cow, kept in the care of one trusted person, who is in charge of a particular ratio of cows that per care giver to ensure the quality of care is successfully conducted…then what is the beef really all about?!!!???
It is childish and ridiculous that this farmer and the people who trust him are being bullied and it seems obvious this is not about a healthy choice of food consumption, which these people are being denied to choose by those doing the bullying.
And if we as Canadians are not capable of making a sensible decision about what we put into our mouths to eat…then why aren’t we put on trial for not being able to make an intelligent choice about who it is we elect in this country!
Seems rather ridiculous to me that we get to choose whether or not to put the cancer from cigarettes in our bodies but not the milk we drink!!! I understand that there maybe those who would launch a lawsuit from a “bad reaction” to raw milk, but wouldn’t it be great if we could label it “drink at your own risk” and get on with it? Isn’t just about everything we do “at our own risk” anyhow. It will only happen when the government decided how to make money on raw milk. In the mean time, I will buy my own cow 🙂
I want to know where I can buy raw milk for me and my family. The government has no business telling me what kind of milk I can drink. As far as I am concerned, pasteurized and homogenized milk is deadly and I will not buy it for my family, but somebody is making a lot of money off of it. As are the celebrities who advertise to drink it and more than likely, they don’t!
This is a good idea. A petition for raw milk legalization in Ontario, then all the provinces.
Next, the state of Maryland and every state in the US where it is illegal. This is great; it makes sense; it will prove that this is the will of the governed.
I just saw this post and will add the link to it to http://www.rawmilkconsumer.ca. We’ll do our best to get the word out about this petition. We have one as well that will be presented to the House of Commons in the fall along with a package of information for as many MP’s and MPP’s across Canada as we can reach. Both these petitions need as many signatures as possible. James McLaren’s needs to be Ontario constituents. Ours is for people right across the country This ridiculous ban on raw milk needs to be looked at. Canada is supposed to be a progressive and free country. It is up to us to make sure our government changes these laws and to do that we have to stand together and keep speaking RATHER LOUDLY into the ear of every politician we can find. Unless we stay in their faces demanding the right to have this food should we decide we want it, nothing will change. The only way that I can see to make changes in government is to make it very clear to all politicians that our votes depend on their looking at our food rights.
Ms. Sellick’s wonderful, heartfelt letter fell on deaf ears, and no wonder. I would like to encourage each of you to read the late Dr. Ross Hume Hall’s Foreword in Doris Sarjeant’s and Karen Evans’s book, ‘Hard to Swallow: The Truth About Food Additives’. Hall lucidly explains his education in “Chemical Politics 101” when he was appointed to the ‘Canadian Environmental Advisory Council’, a group, he says, you’ve “probably never heard of.” Tunney’s Pasture and the food bureaucracy are as “impenetrable as a thicket of thorns.”
Please read him, and be newly amazed.
Legalize raw milk. We demand a choice of what enters our bodies.