CCF – the legal engine behind Michael Schmidt and the ongoing fight for raw milk freedom in Canada’s courts of law

From Chris Schafer, lawyer and executive director, Canadian Constitution Foundation:

Farmer Michael Schmidt with litigation director Karen Selick and executive director Chris Schafer of the Canadian Constitution Foundation, at this summer's Liberty Summer Seminars.

Late last week the fight for food freedom suffered a setback. The Ontario Court of Justice reversed a lower court decision and found Ontario dairy farmer Michael Schmidt guilty on 15 of the 19 charges related to his raw milk cow-share program. Schmidt had been acquitted of all charges by Justice of the Peace Paul Kowarsky in January, 2010, but the Ontario government and the Grey Bruce Health Unit appealed that decision.

The lawyers at the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF), a registered charity, defended Michael Schmidt on a pro-bono (no cost) basis and will continue to do so on appeal of this most recent court decision to the Ontario Court of Appeal. The CCF supports Canadians who want to be free to decide what they feed their families and themselves.

The farms are not alright: gap between what they produce and what they take in is pushing farmers off the land

From Chris Turner, in The Walrus:

ILLUSTRATION BY SCOTT MCKOWEN, from The Walrus

FOR MY DAUGHTER’S fifth birthday, her friend Jake Ferguson arrived with a picture he had drawn himself. They’ve known each other since they were in daycare together at the age of two; they interact easily, like siblings, and she accepted the drawing with casual thanks and little fanfare. My wife and I were much more taken with it.

The picture was an assemblage of large rectangular shapes on outsize wheels, a big hunk of machinery coloured in a vaguely familiar scheme of bright green and yellow. We already knew Jake was an obsessive fan of big trucks and industrial equipment — his mother, Zoe, once told us he awaited the launch of a new season of Mighty Machines the way our daughter, Sloane, anticipates the latest Pixar release, and Zoe sometimes entertained her son by reading to him from farm equipment catalogues. Still, there was something uncommonly touching about his gift of a picture of the machine he loved the most: a John Deere combine harvester.