Karen Selick is a lawyer with the Canadian Constitution Foundation. If you love food freedom please donate to the Canadian Constitution Foundation.
For more information about raw milk and food freedom please see Food Freedom: The Politics of Food.
Karen Selick is a lawyer with the Canadian Constitution Foundation. If you love food freedom please donate to the Canadian Constitution Foundation.
For more information about raw milk and food freedom please see Food Freedom: The Politics of Food.
“Fireweed removes anger and transmutes karma. It is the remedy of restoration. When life destroys us, Fireweed flower essence helps us to successfully start over. Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes of the fire, it helps you to connect to your Higher Self and encourage spiritual breakthroughs. With this comes renewed passion, discovering what your purpose in life is. What you are doing has importance and needs to be done.”
Wild Rose College of Natural Healing
WARNING: This post is a piece of humorous fiction and should not be read as a statement of truth.
We enjoyed our Canada Day Feast beginning with a Black-Market Cheese Appetizer, followed by an illegally produced fermented meat called Sopressata. All washed down with black-market raw milk. The main course was uninspected beef ? killed without appropriate permits ? with a bone broth gravy made from industrial organic shiitakes. The vegetable medley was from unwashed garden vegetables grown in humanure! Dessert was wild strawberries collected by a Metis person without a harvesting licence and without the appropriate paperwork being filed!
We finished off our meal with a snort of moonshine, followed by an after-dinner smoke of medical marijuana?produced by a unregistered grower! The smoke helped with my depression over the fact that “everything I want to do is illegal.”
Every year that passes, it seems easier to find oneself on the wrong side of the law.
Happy Frickin’ Canada Day!
If you love food freedom consider donating to the Canadian Constitution Foundation. You don’t even have to cut your hair. Just send the money!
“An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure.”
Benjamin Franklin
Last week I talked with Megan Turcato from Kamloops Radio NL. She wanted to do an interview about raw milk. She wanted a local person to give a reaction to Micheal Schmidt and Gordon Watson’s recent conviction of Contempt of Court. If you have been reading eatkamloops.org for any time, you know I am very unhappy with the Canadian Government using public resources to drag farmers through the courts under the pretense of “public safety”.
So, what am I feeling about the court case? I found myself full of sorrow at powerful people using their positions to oppress people weaker and less well positioned than themselves. I’m also very angry with the government’s deception that this is about food safety and not about protecting the government’s monopoly on milk quota.
I’m furious that my government can take away my autonomy to choose the types of food I put in my body and with whom I do commerce. I’m terrified that my children, or someone’s children, could be taken away. When are these officials going to start thinking we are bad parents because we feed our children a food they have legislated into a “health hazard”?
So what’s a Mother to do? This is not only about the loss of my personal autonomy but the loss of my parental rights to feed my children nourishing, traditional foods. I realize I am suffering from the grief of losing my autonomy and my rights as a parent. I am grieving over government officials using their privileged positions to oppress peaceful people whose?“only crime” is working to supply people with raw milk.
I found myself awake late into the night, praying for the people fighting for food freedom. But prayer does not seen enough for secular?problems. I don’t have the tools to fight these well-positioned oppressors. There are people who are more knowledgeable about the law, who have a better chance of beating these officials at their own game.
I found myself thinking about women’s long history of cutting our hair during periods of grief and times of loss. In more modern times, hair cutting has been used as fund raisers for charities. I vow to cut my hair myself until raw milk can be legally sold in Canada. I will send the money I would normally spend at the hairdresser’s and give it to the Canadian Constitution Foundation. (If you live in the US the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund also protects farmers from oppressive government regulation.)
I cut my hair every two months and spend $25.00 for my haircut. This means the Canadian Constitution Foundation will get about $150.00 from me each year until raw milk is legalized in Canada. I know if only one person does this, there will not be enough money in the “war chest” to beat the government officials. I’m making an open invitation to other women and men who believe in food freedom to make the same pledge.
So if you see me and I am having a bad-hair-day, you’ll know why. I’m mourning my loss of autonomy!
If you would like to learn more about the situation regarding raw milk in Canada please read Food Freedom: The Politics of Food.
I once thought that the government officials would be “reasonable”. I now know that was delusional thinking. The only way through is to fight.
When: April 6, 2013
Time: 8:30am-8:30pm
Where: Ukrainian Cathedral, 154 East 10th Ave, Vancouver, BC, V5T 3E5
Cost: $99.00
Buy Tickets Here: Fresh Milk, Food Politics
Jackie Ingram and Alice Jongerden of Home On The Range invite you to Fresh Milk, Food Politics. “Please join us for a day of networking, activism and food politics. Dynamic speakers and food exhibits, followed by a wonderful local cheese and wine party to end the day!”
I will be running an information table for the Weston A Price Foundation. Please come and meet the people trying to ensure that you can have the food you want on your plate. If you would like to have some background history about raw milk and food freedom please read: Food Freedom: The Politics of Food.
Updated April 11, 2013: I wanted to share some pictures from Fresh Milk, Food Politics. Apparently, there will be videos of the lectures on the website soon. There were two lectures that I found particularly interesting. Karen Selick from the Canadian Constitution Foundation lectured on how the government uses children to restrict personal freedoms and Nadine Ijaz from the Pacific Rim College outlined the science behind the myths and truths around raw milk.
Mark McAfee from Organic Pastures runs the largest raw milk dairy in California. In California you can buy raw milk in stores. Micheal Schmidt is from Glencolton Farm in Ontario. Michael has been fighting the government for nearly twenty years for the right of herdshare owners to drink milk from their own herd. Jason Gratl is the lawyer for Alice Jongerden from Home on the Range. Alice runs Canada’s largest herdshare program.
Canadian Consumer Raw Milk Advocacy Group
Updated April 19, 2013: Here are just two short interviews with Karen Selick and Nadine Ijaz. There are many more interviews from Fresh Milk, Food Politics.
On September 28, 2011, Justice Peter Tetley of the Ontario Court of Justice reversed the lower court decision that acquitted Michael Schmidt on all 19 charges. Michael Schmidt has been found guilty on 15 of the 19 charges. This appeal was brought before the Ontario Court of Justice by the Ontario Government and the Grey Bruce Health Unit. (Here is a link for an overview of the Canadian Court System.)
Michael Schmidt says: ?This is just a temporary setback. We will continue to fight, both through the courts and through the legislature, for the rights of individuals to decide what they put into their bodies. The public supports us on this issue.? Presently Michael Schmidt is on a raw milk hunger strike. If you would like to learn more about Micheal Schmidt please see The Bovine.
Karen Selick is Michael Schmidt’s lawyer and works with the Canadian Constitution Foundation. The Canadian Constitution Foundation has stated they will support Michael Schmidt to the Supreme Court of Canada, if necessary, “in order to defend consumer choice, freedom of contract, and the right to earn an honest living free from government regulation that is arbitrary, unreasonable, unnecessary and unfair.” Here is a link to a statement from the Canadian Constitution Foundation about Micheal Schmidt’s Judgement. You can find a link to the full version of the judgment in the article.
Here are some older posts about Michael Schmidt’s food fight with the Canadian Government. This particular food fight is over raw milk and whether a herdshare program is a legal construct in Canada. A herdshare program is where a group of people collectively own a cow or a herd of cows and contract a farmer to care, milk and pasture the animals. The real issue isn’t raw milk but if we have the right to co-own a herd of animals and to have a private contractual agreement without undue government interference:
Michael Schmidt, Raw Milk Activist, Acquitted!
Canadian Government Appeals Michael Schmidt?s Acquittal
Helping Michael Schmidt, Raw Milk Activist
Here are some older posts about the raw milk situation in BC:
Raw Milk Contamination?
BC Supreme Court Gives Injunction Against Raw Milk
Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick
Just for fun, CBC is polling to see if people think raw milk sales should be legal in Canada. Tell them what you think:
Should raw milk be sold in Canada?
Updated October 16, 2011: Here is a video about a Raw Milk Rally with Michael Schmidt on October 12, 2011. Michael Schmidt should be an inspiration to all citizens of Canada opposing oppressive bureaucracies.