VIC TORIA – A dairy farmer from Chilliwack, B.C., is launching a constitutional challenge of the law that prohibits her from legally drinking and distributing raw milk.
Alice Jongerden filed notice under the Canadian Charter of Rights and
Freedoms Jan. 19 in B.C. Supreme Court, citing Section 7’s “right to liberty and security of the person.”
Jongerden, who until Sept. 14 ran the 22-cow Home on the Range dairy, said it’s her right and the right of others to drink fresh milk.
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“The more people have a taste of the milk, the more they want it,” she said.
Under her challenge, Jongerden’s Vancouver lawyer, Jason Gratl, is asking for the removal of the section of British Columbia’s Public Health Act that outlaws the distribution of unlicensed and unpasteurized milk for human consumption.
Jongerden said the case is about more than just milk.
“There could be a total prohibition on other farm products,” she said. “Who determines what we should and should not eat?”
The cow share co-op was designed so that people who wanted raw milk could buy a share in a cow and then receive a share of its production for a weekly fee.
Jongerden said the co-op soon grew to 450 customers in the Vancouver area.
Customers included immigrants from countries where raw milk is not outlawed, people with stomach, skin or intolerance problems who find raw milk helpful and people who preferred the taste of unpasteurized milk.
The Fraser Health Authority identified the Home on the Range co-op in June 2008 as a producer and distributor of raw milk, which B.C.’s Public Health Act considers a health hazard.
In March 2010, the Fraser Health Authority secured a permanent injunction to stop Home on the Range from distributing raw milk for human consumption.
In response, Jongerden labelled the bottles of raw milk as “not for human consumption.”
By September, the Fraser Health Authority asked that Jongerden be held in contempt of court because she continued to distribute the milk.
She was found guilty in December but not fined.
Jongerden had left the dairy in September. It was renamed Our Cows and is managed by Ontario raw milk producer Michael Schmidt.
He has branded the raw milk and raw milk products as cosmetics as a way to get around the law, which says raw milk cannot be distributed for human consumption.
An Ontario justice of the peace had acquitted Schmidt in January 2010 of 19 charges related to the distribution of raw milk and its products in Ontario because his was a private operation.
The ruling is being appealed. Jongerden said the debate is not just about consuming fresh milk. “Who says it’s a health hazard? How do they determine that?” she said. Jongerden maintains fresh milk can be produced safely. It’s widely available in Europe and the United States, she added.
