This time it's different, says raw milk farmer

Friday, October 2, 2015

by JIM ALGIE

Raw milk advocate Michael Schmidt faces yet another investigation into possible violations of provincial health legislation and the Milk Act, but this time may be different.

It’s the latest round in a 21-year-long campaign by Schmidt against Ontario regulations that seek to outlaw the distribution of raw milk because of bacteria-related health risks. It’s also the third time for a large-scale raid on the Grey County farm where Schmidt and members of his family have farmed for more than 30 years.

Investigators for Ontario ministries of Natural Resources and of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs appeared about 10:30 a.m. on Friday at Glencolton Farms near Durham. Their arrival led quickly to a four-hour stand-off with Schmidt, his wife, Elisa, some neighbours and members of a co-operative based on the farm, both Michael and Elisa said in interviews, Saturday.

Investigators began gathering equipment and samples, but backed down after a crowd of about 50 people gathered and blocked roadways, Michael said. At one point, Schmidt insisted officials would not be allowed to leave unless they agreed to leave behind much of what they had gathered as evidence.

Provincial police were called to maintain order, he said. Elisa said she is not aware of any charges resulting from enforcement activity at the farm. A spokesperson for the agriculture ministry declined to comment on events at the farm.

“There is an active investigation under way and it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment further at this time,” the ministry’s Susin Micallef said Friday in a brief, emailed statement.

“We knew that maybe something was coming,” Schmidt said of Friday’s raid. He referred to the discovery of surveillance video cameras on roads near the farm earlier this year and the seizure of samples of milk and dairy products from a farm delivery van in a church parking lot in Thornhill, Tuesday.

One investigator admitted to Schmidt, Friday, that cameras he had removed in recent weeks from locations surrounding the farm were part of the inquiry that led to Friday’s raid. What’s different about the most recent Glencolton raid, however, is that the farm at the centre of his raw milk advocacy campaign no longer belongs to Schmidt.

An organization called the Agriculture Renewal Cooperative Inc. took ownership of the farm and its assets in 2008. The change in ownership and operations at Glencolton Farms depend at least partly on details of a judge’s decision in the most recent of two separate court cases in which Schmidt was convicted, he said, Saturday. Schmidt still faces about $120,000 in unpaid fines for earlier conviction under the Health Protection and Promotion Act.

In early 2014, a three-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled against Schmidt who maintains raw milk can be produced safely and has health benefits for consumers. He asserted during those proceedings a constitutional right among Canadians to consume raw milk. The Supreme Court of Canada later declined to hear an appeal by Schmidt from the Ontario decision.

At an earlier stage of the case, however, Ontario Superior Court Judge Peter D. Tetley provided a relatively detailed road map for lifting some of Ontario’s raw milk sanctions in a 77-page decision. A copy of the decision appears prominently on The Bovine, a website dedicated to Schmidt’s raw milk campaign.

Although Justice Tetley convicted Schmidt of violating Ontario food safety regulations, he went on to outline a possible constitutional objection for consumers to Ontario limits on the use of raw milk. At the time of his 2006 charges, Schmidt owned Glencolton Farms and sought to distribute milk through a system of “cow-share” ownership.

In the Glencolton plan, cow share owners paid $1,200 for a six-year membership that allowed them to buy 750 litres of milk — or its equivalent in dairy products — at the farm gate for $2 per litre, Tetley found on appeal. At the time he was charged in 2006, Schmidt had 150 cow share members and 24 cows.

Judge Tetley found that, despite membership certificates, participants were really buying access to the Glencolton Farms’ milk supply. There was no evidence they participated as equity owners in the cow herd or its management, he ruled.

Under the seven-year-old co-operative arrangement, however, a group of about 120 members “own the farm, the cows, the machinery and all things related to the operation,” Elisa said, Saturday. The co-op has three employees and is run by a board of directors of which Elisa is secretary.

“After the raid in 2006, the farm ownership got transferred to the co-operative . . . and all the cow share members who wanted to continue bought shares in the co-operative to finance the purchase of the farm, basically,” Elisa said. That should place co-op members on the same footing as any dairy farmer, she said.

“We are saying . . . we are a very large family, structuring ourselves as a co-operative all having financial interest in the operation,” Elisa said. “What’s the difference between that and the dairy farmer down the road whose parents come in to the barn and pick up their milk?”

“I mean, I know there’s a difference but where does the line get drawn here?” Elisa said. “If they’re going to say, `You guys are contravening the (Milk) Act,’ then they need to say to every other dairy farmer they cannot drink their own milk.”

Although Michael continues to live at Glencolton, he no personal property interest nor any position as either an employee or director of the co-operative that now owns the farm and its 30-cow milking herd.

“I have absolutely no position,” Michael said. “I’m so-called the elder on the farm. I don’t own anything but I have the right to live here,” he said.

“As an elder, I can live here; I mean, I know about the farming and I still do my training program for young people,” Michael said. Schmidt defended his confrontational approach with provincial investigators, Friday.

“For 21 years, I tried to establish a constructive dialogue for a change or an exemption in the law,” he said. Schmidt told investigators they have “ignored all that and instead you’re coming again on this farm with an army and invading our privacy here. This is it; I’m not negotiating anymore,” he said.

Friday’s investigators did manage to remove some computers and a few samples of product, Schmidt said. But there has never been any secrecy about the fact of raw milk production on the farm.

Elisa said the market for raw milk in Ontario has become an established fact. She also argued that direct relations between the product’s ultimate consumers and the farms that produce it make sense because of the perishability of raw milk.

“It needs to be consumed soon. It needs to be very direct. It’s the only way we can see that working and we see it all over the world,” Elisa said. BF