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450,000 infections (using Dr. Harwig’s multiplier). But since Health Canada eventually
backed down under political and commercial opposition, the 1,500 reported cases
(possibly 450,000 actual cases) externally defined for Health Canada what is to be a
minimum acceptable safety standard.
• The magnitude of infections caused by the large raw milk cheese outbreak demonstrates
quite clearly why raw milk has become a safety issue in the modern dairy industry, more
precisely because of milk pooling in off-farm processing for retail sale. A small amount
of contaminated raw milk, which might only affect a handful of people under direct sales,
can affect hundreds of thousands of people because of milk pooling and retail sales.
• Raw milk was blamed for the outbreak when the real cause was a production failure.
The raw milk which caused the problem was made for mass production purposes and
therefore it necessarily required pasteurization to make it safe. But through production
mishandling, the raw milk was not fully pasteurized. However, the government
unjustifiably blamed the raw milk and went so far as to propose legislation banning all
raw milk cheese production when the real problem was production mishandling. We took
this as yet another example of the strong pre-existing prejudice against raw milk widely
held by regulatory personnel.
• Dr. Harwig also states in evidence, “I, too, as a child, drank raw milk on the farm.” We
want this same right and for our children too.
In summary, this evidence shows that Health Canada knows the significant extent of
direct producer-consumer raw milk consumption already taking place in Canada and that
it falls within safe limits, otherwise they would have had to ban it. The evidence also
points out the prejudicial manner in which Health Canada interprets and applies its own
concept of food safety depending upon the circumstances at hand.
11. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Our law restricts the access of most but not all Canadians to a nutritionally superior
product, which violates the Charter on two counts – discrimination and the right to a
superior product.
Therefore, we invoke Section 15 of the Charter for our law to include an exemption for
direct producer-consumer sales of uncertified raw milk products. If anyone is free to
drink raw uncertified milk should they happen to own a cow or a share of one, then
everyone can – discrimination is not allowed.
And, we invoke Section 7 of the Charter for the creation of a certified system of raw milk
production to put raw milk products on an equal footing with pasteurized dairy products.
In our opinion, the existing law unjustly favours the latter. But the creation of a certified
system would allow consumers, both educated and uneducated, to easily identify the
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