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15. Raw meat illegal to sell & discrimination against raw milk consumers
We discovered a very peculiar aspect of the Food and Drugs Act in that it is generally
accepted that raw meat, poultry, fish and eggs all contain pathogens and are thereby unfit
for raw human consumption. Their sale as a raw and therefore hazardous product,
however, therefore contravenes the Food and Drugs Act Sections 4(a) and 4(b) noted
above. Liquor sales would be prohibited under Section 4(a), as evidenced by the near
death described in section 10 above. Therefore, the sale of raw meat, poultry, fish and
eggs and liquor is just as illegal in Canada as raw milk. The Act contains no exemption
for these foods, which are hazardous in the state of their sale, and of which meat, fish,
poultry and eggs require heat treatment by consumers to achieve pathogenic safety. At
best this constitutes discrimination against raw milk consumers and at worst, it demands
the immediate prohibition of all sales of raw meat, poultry, fish and eggs and liquor in
Canada.
Should the government decide, however, to introduce an exemption in law to legalize the
sale of raw meat, poultry, fish and eggs and liquor, the wording of any changes should be
examined for discrimination against raw milk consumers. For example, if consumers are
assumed to be educated and capable of making raw meat pathogenically safe, why should
raw milk consumers be treated differently by forcing them to drink only raw milk that has
been heat treated by a dairy? Dairies have made very serious production errors as
discussed above. To protect themselves from this known risk, raw milk consumers should
be given the choice to heat treat their own milk, just like raw meat users, otherwise, this
would violate the equality provisions of the Charter, Section 15. Mandatory
pasteurization should rather be a voluntary choice for consumers, paralleling raw meats
and their irradiation, as per recent Health Canada legislative proposals.
Health Canada reports, “Raw Foods of Animal Origin (RFAO's) includes meat, poultry,
eggs, raw milk cheese, fish and seafood. Annually up to 30,000 cases of foodborne illness
are reported in Canada, the majority of which due to the microbial contamination of
constitutes an infection rate of approximately 0.1%. By taking the 22 cases of raw milk
infection reported in section 8 above against the 250,000 consumers, the infection rate for
raw milk is approximately 0.01% (broad allowances being made for the population of
British Columbia and the number of years over which the infections occurred). The
infection rate for raw milk is therefore about one-tenth the rate for RFAO’s. Based on
this, the ban on the sale of raw milk is discriminatory in comparison to RFAO’s.
As mentioned in the opening paragraph, one of the submitters has adopted a raw foods
diet. He is also a vegetarian, a non-drinker and a non-smoker, owns no firearms and even
abstains from coffee, tea and sugar. But the one “vice” he wishes to engage in, is drinking
raw milk. For a liberal democracy like Canada to ban the sale of raw milk to this person
is clearly discriminatory.
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