BELLEVILLE, ON: Dairy farmer Michael Schmidt’s next scheduled day in court has been postponed from April 25 to July 25, 2012 after Schmidt’s lawyer was served with a motion to strike evidence from his application for leave to appeal.
Karen Selick of the Canadian Constitution Foundation said, “The lawyers for the province of Ontario took exception to some evidence which we expected to be non-controversial—for instance, the survey showing that 88.7 percent of farm families on Canadian dairy farms drink raw milk themselves. So we will confirm that evidence in a different form and place it before the Court of Appeal in July rather than in April.”
Schmidt said, “I found Justice Tetley’s decision confusing. Although he convicted me, he seemed to say that other cowshare organizations that do things differently from mine might be legal. There are many other cowshare groups operating in Ontario—some as small as 3 families sharing a cow—and it’s important for them to know whether they are operating within the law. I taught them my methods through Cow Share Canada, so I feel responsible for seeing this appeal through to the highest possible level.”
The Canadian Constitution Foundation (“Freedom’s Defence Team”) is a registered charity, independent and non-partisan, whose mission is to defend the constitutional freedoms of Canadians through education, communication and litigation.
