Michael Schmidt welcomes police and regulators to his dairy in a 2012 raid.

Ever since an Ontario judge issued a permanent injunction barring Michael Schmidt from distributing raw milk to the 150 or so members of his food cooperative nearly two weeks ago, I’ve been waiting for the long protesting dairy farmer to pull a new rabbit out of his hat to allow the milk to continue flowing. After all, that is what he’s done for the last 24 years.

I expect he’ll come riding out from a farm field on horseback to try to chase the enforcers off his property if they give him a hard time, as he did once before. Or that he’ll launch yet another hunger strike until they disappear. Or that he’ll just ignore them, as he has any number of times in the past, and continue his simple business of supplying milk to families that desperately want the stuff. Or that he’ll organize his coop members to storm Ontario’s parliament and force its members to finally legalize what he’s been providing safely for so long.

But as the icy winter days tick by, and nothing happens, I begin to wonder if this time is different. That maybe Schmidt has pulled the last rabbit out of his well worn hat, and that the hat is now empty.

Schmidt says that what makes this time different from all the other legal obstacles thrown in his path before is that now he’s being threatened with criminal penalties if he fails to obey. That would likely mean huge fines and more jail time, on top of the 60-day sentence he received late last year for allegedly interfering with the regulators and blocking their confiscation truck during a 2015 raid.

The permanent injunction imposed by an Ontario judge on Jan. 5 is a disheartening thud for the internationally known protester after 24 years of resisting government efforts to shut him down. In a 25-page decision, the judge, P.W. Sutherland, indicated he was impressed by the 15,000 pages of supporting material Schmidt submitted tracing his efforts to provide raw milk on a private cooperative basis to his 150 members. “The voluminous material provided by the respondents and the (coop members) indicated that there is a high demand for the consumption of raw milk  and raw milk products,” the judge stated. “The demand is based on cultural, health, life choices and religious reasons. All these reasons are laudable and legitimate.”

Legitimate, perhaps, but not legal. Despite his sympathies, the judge declined to allow classification of the Schmidt’s group’s arrangement as a “family farm,” since the members aren’t blood relatives. And he declined to declare that “exceptional circumstances” exist, which would have allowed him to avoid issuing an injunction.

The judge seemed to talk himself out of using options he could easily have applied to allow Schmidt to continue serving the coop members. Sutherland concluded he was obligated to declare Schmidt’s unlicensed dairy illegal under Ontario’s Milk Act and its Health Protection and Promotion Act (HPPA), which essentially sanction a government-run cartel of licensed dairies.

Even if he obeys completely the newest order, Schmidt still faces the prospect of a steep penalty for court costs covering the injunction, likely totaling many thousands of dollars. Should he not obey the injunction, he could face further financial penalties and prison time.

One gets the sense in talking with Schmidt that he’s tired of going it alone. Yes, he’s had lots of supporters at his court appearances, but in the end, the legal burden has fallen nearly entirely on him.

Of course, much of that is intentional, part of a government process of wearing him down. As Schmidt noted, there were 70 people involved in blocking the government’s truck confiscating his dairy’s food and equipment back in 2015, but in the end, “The only person convicted was me.”

As it turns out, the government won’t be rid of raw milk. Thanks to Schmidt’s example, lots more Ontario dairies are selling raw milk illegally than was the case 24 years ago. An unknown number of Ontario citizens are traveling to Vermont and bringing raw milk with them back across the border.

As in much of the U.S., Canadian regulators are choosing to look the other way when it comes to black-market milk.

Schmidt made his decision long ago to legally challenge Canada’s dairy cartel, rather than going the underground route, and now he seems resigned to living with the consequences. He and his wife, Elisa, talk about possibly selling grass-fed beef, pork, and lamb. They also talk about setting up a music center at their farm.  Any further political action, such as a campaign to convince Ontario’s parliament to change the province’s strict no-raw-milk dairy laws, must come from coop members and others, Schmidt indicated. “Unless you put your own skin in the game, don’t feel sorry for us,” he told me.

Whatever they choose to do, you know it will be done beautifully.  In the meantime, it will be very sad to see such a passionate caretaker of the land  and dairy cows forced out of the occupation he so enjoyed, and carried out so well.

The judge may have sympathized, but obviously there is little room for compassion in a government-run mafia.