Ontario Farms Under Attack

Since I began writing about Frank Meyers’ ongoing battle with the Canadian military to save his farm from armed invasion and seizure by the government, and in interacting with supporters of the 85-year-old Ontario farmer, issues of food and farm freedom have come onto my radar and interested me in a way they hadn’t before.

Ontario raw milk crusader Michael Schmidt

My interest in the Frank Meyers case was mostly due to what I see as an outright assault by the government on the right of all Canadians to own property – property of any sort; not just farms, homes or land. In interacting with Frank’s supporters I learned that many were drawn to support Frank’s cause due to an affinity for family-run farms, concerns about food security, genetically modified organisms and the like.

As a result, I have recently become acquainted with the cases of two other Ontario farmers who have come under assault by the state for engaging in peaceful and voluntary farming practices deemed inappropriate by legislators and bureaucrats.

Michael Schmidt, a Durham Ontario dairy farmer, has been providing families with raw milk since 1991. Schmidt has been at the forefront of the raw milk crusade in Canada, and has been at war with the Ontario government for many years. His cow share co-op provides fresh, raw milk to 150 families (over 600 people) in Ontario.

Despite the fact that his cow share scheme does not violate Ontario’s current raw milk laws, as co-op members own a portion of his cows and are not buying the milk from Schmidt, and members have not reported a single case of illness from the milk, his farm has been raided multiple times by government agencies, equipment stolen and product destroyed.

Schmidt has been convicted and fined on raw milk offences and seen those convictions overturned, only to have courts reverse the decision once more. Tomorrow, February 5, 2014, Michael Schmidt, represented by the Canadian Constitution Foundation, will appear before the Court of Appeal of Ontario in a final appeal of his convictions.

Montana Jones says a tearful goodbye to one of her sheep as
armed police look on.
Photo credit - ShropshireSheep.org

Sadly, Michael Schmidt is not the only Ontario farmer to be subjected to farm raids and property theft and destruction by government agencies. Shepherdess Montana Jones, who raised rare Shropshire sheep, began her battle with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) after a sheep she sold in 2007 to a farm in Alberta, tested positive for scrapie.

Scrapie is a disease that affects sheep, but is not transmittable to humans. In 2011, the CFIA ordered a quarantine of Jones’ sheep and tested them for scrapie. Despite the fact that not one of Jones' sheep tested positive for scrapie, the CFIA, citing that the test is only 88% accurate, announced that it would proceed with the euthanasia of the entire flock.

It is alleged, at this point, that Jones, in conspiracy with raw milk farmer Michael Schmidt, had the flock removed from her farm, in order to evade capture and euthanasia of the sheep by the CFIA. The sheep were later discovered on a farm south of Owen Sound Ontario and subsequently euthanized.

I cannot claim to be knowledgeable about the health implications of drinking raw milk, or the genetics of Shropshire sheep, so I will leave those issues to more qualified parties. What I do see in these cases, are individuals who peacefully and voluntarily interacted with their customers to provide a product or service. As a result of their peaceful and consensual activity, they were subjected to threats, and ultimately, raids on their property by agents of the government.

If every man has a right to life, and to not have that right infringed upon by others, then by extension, does he not have the right to sustain his life (i.e. feed himself) according to his own will? Even if, as the government claims, raw milk is dangerous to the health of those who consume it, does not a right to one’s own life, like any right, also imply the ability to dispose of that right in any manner one sees fit?

Canadian Senator: Constitution Fails to Restrain Government

Following months of gripping political scandal* surrounding what has been widely reported in the Canadian mainstream media as wildly excessive and inappropriate spending of government funds by Conservative Party Senators Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau and Mike Duffy, members of the "upper house" debated, this week, a motion seeking the suspension of the three senators in question.

Senator Pamela Wallin wonders, if the Constitution fails to
restrain government in its treatment of politicians, what could it
"do to an ordinary citizen who crosses the government of the day"?

Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/ The Canadian Press

In response to the allegations against her, and the motion to suspend, without pay and privileges, herself and two of her colleagues, Senator Pamela Wallin delivered a scathing speech on the floor of the Senate, Wednesday. Wallin claims that both Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper and her Senate colleagues' efforts to suspend her are in violation not only of standing Parliamentary rules and procedures, but also the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, an addendum to the Canadian Constitution.

No doubt supporters of opposition parties (Liberals, NDP and Greens), who have, for the past several months, taken every opportunity to criticize the conduct of Wallin, Brazeau and Duffy, will hail Wallin's speech as proof of the incompetence and brazen disrespect for the rule of law of the Harper Government.

Of course, critics of Harper's Conservative government will quote only the lines from Wallin's speech which malign the current Prime Minister and serve their own political agendas; lines like,

"Due process and the rule of law [which Wallin claims are being disregarded by the government, in her case] are all we have to protect us from the tyranny of those with power and from the passion of the mob."

"This process is not in the interests of an independent, functioning and effective Senate – although it is most clearly in the interests of those who want to abolish this chamber." (The Harper government)

I can only imagine that if the shoe were on the other foot - that is, if the senators in question were belonging to the Liberal Party, under the infallible leadership of the young, handsome, and shampoo-savvy Justin Trudeau - critics of today's government would jump to their defense, claiming (as Wallin has), that the expenses were justified, since they were being "activist senators" who were actually attempting to get things done, unlike their Conservative colleagues.

Ultimately, whether or not Wallin, Brazeau and Duffy spent government resources outside the scope permitted by the rules of the Senate is of little importance. The most important remark made by Wallin in her speech to the Senate is this,

"If this chamber can take this extreme action with regard to a sitting senator, imagine what it could do to an ordinary citizen who crosses the government of the day."

The bottom line is that every single member of the unelected Senate, as well as the elected members of the House of Commons, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and opposition leaders Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair, see it as their moral right to steal money and property from you and me in order to pay their salaries; first by instructing  CRA bureaucrats to pen threatening letters demanding a portion of your income and, failing that, by sending armed men to retrieve your property and throw you in a cage, should you resist.

If the "rules" outlined in the Canadian constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is supposed to guarantee the fundamental rights of all people living in Canada, has been powerless to prevent these politicians from forcibly stealing from Canadians, then in what fantasy world could we expect the same politicians to reverently observe the rules that they wrote in respect to the manner in which that stolen property should be disposed of?


*This would be an appropriate place to use a sarcasm font.