Michael Schmidt's unpasteurized milk operation is in trouble again. The truck that delivers raw milk products to people in the Toronto-area was raided Tuesday by police and health officials in Richmond Hill.
Every Tuesday the milk is delivered there from Schmidt's Durham area farm. Schmidt was not there at the time of the raid.
He says officials in Richmond Hill took samples of the milk, but so far haven't laid charges.
Schmidt believes the operation is within the law because the people who get the milk are part of, what he calls, a farm share cooperative. The 120 members own part of the Durham area farm, the machinery, the cows and the milk.
He wonders who they'll charge.
"It's their farm, it's their ownership of the milk so they have to figure out first whom they want to charge and then we'll see where we go from here," says Schmidt.
He thinks the fact the raid comes not long after he found surveillance cameras near his farm is no coincidence. So far, West Grey police have refused to tell him who owns the cameras or why they were there.
"What I'm kind of curious about is if the raid is connected to the cameras found here along the road so everything seems kind of strange now in the face of the raid," he says.
Schmidt's fight over the right to distribute unpasteurized milk products has been going on for 20 years. In 2010 he was acquitted of marketing raw milk products. The province appealed and two years ago he was found guilty.
