CC'd to minister and their corresponding opposition critics in natural resources, tourism, health and agriculture.
Nov. 28
Dear Ms. Dombrowsky;
The treatment farmer Michael Schmidt has received at the hands of our provincial government is appalling. It is not serving the public interest but instead persecuting a farmer who is stewarding the land with integrity and providing food more wholesome, more safe than most of the regulated industry farms who degrade our environment and poison our food source with toxicity. In a country where pesticide residue was recently found to remain on a large portion of produce on grocery store shelves, including potentially dangerous chemicals like permethrin, which has lax safety guidelines in Canada, a whole-foods activist should be applauded, not abused. We Ontarians can't trust our food because it is produced as a commodity by profit driven corporations instead of farmers of conscience like Mr. Schmidt.
Also, this continuing assault on raw milk is bad for culinary tourism. Taste a bite of Le Sauvagine or one of the myriad raw milk cheeses that make the province of Quebec a world class culinary destination and you will never go back. Raw milk's balanced flora and fauna provide a gorgeous complexity in cheese and butter that cannot be matched. It is sad that only a few producers are permitted to use raw milk in dairy production here. This isn't radical, it's natural and it's done frequently and safely in Europe, in California, on Salt Spring Island and on most farms across Canada where there is a healthy dairy cow in the barn.
Totaled up, I have spent many months, almost a year, on family farms across Canada and in England. At all of them, bar none, when dairy cows have been on the premises, the farm's inhabitants and their neighbours have enjoyed fresh warm milk straight from the cow or chilled and poured over their cereal in the morning. I believe this practice is widespread. Talk about a test market! I have had the pleasure to partake many times on many farms and gladly because raw milk is the only milk I can digest comfortably. Unfortunately, I can't get any in Toronto. I wish I could. It might have a short shelf life but it is wholesome food.
Attitudes towards food safety practices change all the time and the regulations should bend to reflect those changes. Take, for example, government recommended formaldehyde use in maple syrup processing and government recommendations on breastfeeding as recent as thirty years ago. In both cases, in response to evolving evidence and early adoption by individuals and organizations, the government of Canada investigated and eventually changed its position on both issues. Until your government investigates raw milk fully with appropriate controls and compares it's safety to other foods in this province (not to mention government sanctioned tobacco use) it has no moral authority over the issue. Until that time, Mr. Schmidt should have his impounded livelihood returned to him and restitution for all damages and court fees over the past twelve years.
Sincerely,
Kate MacNaughton
St. Pauls, Toronto
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