Michael Schmidt to deliver letter to Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty today re raw milk hunger strike

Michael Schmidt had already lost about 20 lbs on his hunger strike by last week at this time. Here he is at the NFU raw milk rally outside the Grey Bruce Health Unit.

Today, October 18, 2011, Farmer and Freedom To Choose Advocate, Michael Schmidt is personally delivering a letter to Premier McGuinty outlining his demands.

The letter is pasted below for your reference.

Michael – on Day 19 of his hunger strike – will be holding a press conference on the steps of Queen’s Park at 2 :00pm today, Tuesday October 18.

Danny Beaton (Turtle Clan of the Mohawks) will be joining Michael at this press conference. Danny won the National Aboriginal Achievement award in 2010 and has been working with spiritual leaders across North America to keep native traditions alive. His website is Dannybeaton.ca

No right to milk for Canadians, eh?

From Manda Aufochs Gillespie, in the Vancouver Observer:

“Hey Canadians, you have no right to drink milk says the Ontario Court of Justice. Specifically, the judge overturned an earlier court’s decision to allow informed consent for cowshare members to drink raw milk in Ontario, saying” “The entitlement to consume milk, raw or otherwise, is not a Charter protected right.”

This declaration by a Canadian court came just on the tail of a similar declaration in a Wisconsin court which ruled that people in that U.S. state “do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice….”

These attacks on food freedom are the most recent saga in the ongoing legal battle about the constitutionality of raw milk. In the U.S., that battle is fought state by state, with the majority of states allowing it in some form or other—either for sale on the grocery store shelf (like across the border in Washington state) or for sale only through a co-op structure where a person becomes a partial owner of a cow. In Canada the battle is moving from the provinces to the national stage. “Canada is the only G8 country to ban the sale of [raw milk] products, which some argue has greater health benefits than the available pasteurized milk,” according to the National Post.

Health unit to charge Michael Schmidt over “distributing” raw milk at last week’s NFU rally in Owen Sound

From Denis Langlois in the Owen Sound Sun Times:

A toast for the Queen, whose family are known drinkers of raw milk at the rally last week during which milk was seized by Chris Munn of the Grey Bruce health unit

“Durham-area farmer Michael Schmidt will be charged now that laboratory tests have confirmed that milk distributed at a rally last week was unpasteurized, a Grey Bruce Health Unit official said Monday.

Schmidt, reached at his farm Monday, said he is not surprised that the health unit plans to lay charges against him.

“They seem to be just full of vengeance to get me. It has nothing to do with the safety of people,” he said.