Personal Injury Law

Canada's Raw Milk Poster Boy Compares Himself With Gandhi and King--Dilutional or Dilirious?

By Marler Clark LLP

Let's see.   You cook up a scheme to evade the law.   You get caught.  You then conclude you must be just like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.  Ordinarily we'd say "Only in America," but this two-bit drama is going on in Canada.

We refer to Michael Schmidt, who was found guilty of contempt of court for ignoring an order to cease selling raw milk.   Selling unpasteurized milk is illegal in Canada because health officials say it can carry salmonella, E. coli and Listeria.

You can drink raw milk from your own cow and the scheme Schmidt was using to evade the law was to sell shares of his cows to willing city residents.

Schmidt clearly wants to be Canada's poster boy for raw milk.  Outside the courtroom, where prosecutors want the judge to impose a $5,000 fine and charge the so-called organic farmer court costs of $53,000; Schmidt indulged in drinking raw milk and made his lofty comparisons.

"When Gandhi picked up the salt, he kept marching, and when Martin Luther started the Montgomery bus strike, he kept going until the law was changed," Schmidt said.

For more from The Canadian Press, go here.

Full post as published by Salmonella Blog on October 20, 2008 (boomark / email).