Raw milk cosmetics ruse ends in suspended sentences

Michael Schmidt, an Ontario raw milk crusader, speaks to reporters on July 31, 2008 outside court in Newmarket, Ont. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Colin Perkel

Two of Canada’s most outspoken raw milk crusaders have been handed three month suspended sentences for selling unpasteurized dairy disguised as cosmetic products in B.C.’s Fraser Valley.

Michael Schmidt and Gordon Watson were sentenced this week in B.C. Supreme Court for civil contempt, with a warning they could face three months of jail time if they breach a court order prohibiting the men from selling the raw milk again in the next year.

The pair was distributing the product from a Chilliwack cow-share co-op, with the dairy going to paid co-op members. It is illegal to sell unpasteurized milk in Canada because it’s considered a health hazard under the federal Health and Protection Act. But the farm maintained it wasn’t breaking any laws because members own a stake in the animals, meaning they already own the milk.

The farm had previously been cited for selling raw dairy products, including cream, yogurt and milk, to members through various depots in Metro Vancouver. The farm’s owner, Alice Jongerden, had sidestepped a cease-and-desist order by labeling the illicit product “not for human consumption.”

Schmidt took over the operation of the farm recently, renaming it “Our Cows,” with a new business model to produce the dairy as a cosmetic and not a food product.

The Fraser Health Authority said Schmidt was applying to Health Canada to have his “Cleopatra’s Enzymatic Bath Lotion” deemed a cosmetic.

But Schmidt admitted to a health authority staffer that the lotion only contained one ingredient: raw milk.

Schmidt said at no time did he produce or distribute the raw milk for human consumption. But Justice Randall Wong disagreed, saying the farmer perpetrated an elaborate scheme.

“In this case, distributing raw milk as a purported cosmetic product was patent lip service and ruse to distribute raw milk for human consumption,” Justice Randall Wong wrote in his judgment.

Although it’s illegal to sell raw milk in Canada, it’s still legal to drink it. It’s a situation that raw milk lovers say puts them into a legal quagmire.

Health Canada mandates that all milk sold is pasteurized; a process it says is the only way to kill potentially-harmful bacteria like Listeria, E. coli and salmonella. B.C.’s chief medical officer says the pasteurization process in no way diminishes the nutritional value.

But raw milk advocates maintain many of the dairy’s health benefits – including healthy bacteria like probiotics -- are destroyed in the heating process.

Schmidt has long argued that milk destined for the Canadian production system is lower quality, and that conventional farmers can afford to be less careful about fecal contamination and health standards because they know their product will go through a super heating process to kill all living bacteria -- good or bad -- within it.

The Ontario farmer has come up against the law many times in recent years for pushing the illicit product.

He was fined $9,150 and given a year of probation in 2011 on convictions related to selling and distributing unpasteurized milk in Ontario.

He went on a five-week hunger strike following the decision, dropping 50 pounds while subsisting on a diet of water and lemon juice. He started eating again after a meeting with then-premier Dalton McGuinty.

Schmidt has intervened in raw milk cases in B.C., Alberta and the U.S.

The sale of raw milk has been prohibited in Canada since 1991, with health agencies saying it is a known health hazard.

In the United States, where 29 states allow the sale of raw milk, scientists say the liquid is a serious health risk. Of 153 milk-related health outbreaks in the U.S. from 1990 to 2003, 50 were attributed to raw dairy -- as were 1140 sicknesses.

Canada is the only G8 country where the sale of raw milk is illegal.