Sean McGivern speaks at Michael Schmidt's Grey Bruce Health Unit rally.
“The Grey County local of the National Farmers Union helped organise a protest in Owen Sound yesterday.
About a hundred people rallied at the Grey Bruce Health Unit headquarters in support of raw milk activist Michael Schmidt.
Grey NFU President Sean McGivern says drinking raw milk is an issue of freedom of choice.
The rally could end up creating more legal problems for Schmidt.
He handed out cups of what he said was raw milk.
A health unit official confiscated a sample of that milk and officials say if it is, in fact, unpasteurized Schmidt will face more charges.
Supporters of Michael Schmidt say it’s an issue of freedom of choice.
About a hundred people rallied at the Grey Bruce Health Unit headquarters in Owen Sound yesterday.
They’re protesting Schmidt’s conviction of distributing unpasteurized milk products.
The rally was organized by the local chapter of the National Farmer’s Union.
Spokesman Sean McGivern.
Michael Schmidt passed out cups of raw milk at yesterday’s rally….”
Go to Agri-media.ca for the full story and for audio files from the rally.
The Bovine 
Keep up the fight Mr. MacGivern. Finally a guy who is not afraid to speak up for people who wants to get milk straight from the cow. Does the Farmers Union check up on any of there farmers selling milk from there barn? Place I got some milk was not clean as expected, but it tasted great and I didn’t die. Everybody is scared of everything these days.
Dear Stan:
I am sure it is absolutely true that there is a lot of unnecessary fear-mongering .
But could there be another untalked about “subtext” to the problem ?
Don’t we live in an overly libelous culture ?
As we all know one can serve 10 000 or 100 000 people perfectly but if one person even thinks they had a negative experience as a result of your product or service you could be tied up in courts for a long time and a significant portion of your assets could be threatened or seized in a lawsuit.
So the problem arises if a government refuses to regulate a product or service , no matter how great and healing it is , then the bankers will not finance the operation and the insurance companies will not insure the operation .
Where does that leave us ?
I would be interested to know if in some US states they have enacted some kind of “limited liability” rules for people who choose to drink raw milk ? For example that you could not sue the operation (or the local or state or federal government for that matter ) for more than $10 000 or even nothing at all if you think you had a problem from their products and services ?
I don’t think our current Canadian legal system would permit such a limited liability or exclusion clause ?
Some people have wisely pointed out that raw milk drinkers still deserve full health care coverage just as a tobacco smoker still gets full health care coverage.
So there are 2 kinds of liability here one is the liability of the government for properly or improperly regulating the public operation and the other is the liability of the agister, farmer, or distributor .
Again I have always found this issue to be “hush,hush” when i have tried to broach this topic openly . It obviously goes way beyond the issue of Raw Dairy rights and regulations .
This issue of “fault-finding” and assessing liability , in itself, is blocking or slowing down a lot of good things from happening in our culture. It definitely is a complicating factor in creating a sustainable food culture and system as well . It partly explains this trend towards suppressing any kind of high energy living or superfoods and favouring as many dead, low energy (or even “no energy ” !) microwaved or overpreserved or overcooked foods as possible