B.C. 'cow share' operator’s raw milk case dismissed after decades-long fight (2024)

A B.C. judge says a longtime raw milk advocate who once tried to circumvent regulations through a “cow share” program can’t try to overturn the provincial ban on unpasteurized milk again after two previous unsuccessful attempts.

Justice William Veenstra of B.C. Supreme Court says in a ruling posted online Monday that raw milk activist Gordon Watson’s latest attempt to change raw milk regulations can’t succeed because the matters have already been heard and decided by the court more than a decade ago.

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The ruling says the idea behind cow sharing, in which participants are offered fractional ownership in a cow, was to exploit a legal loophole allowing farmers to consume raw milk from their own herd.

Veenstra’s ruling says Watson was involved in a “cow share” program in the early 2000s that was eventually shut down when the Fraser Health Authority obtained a court injunction in 2011 due to raw milk being considered a health hazard under the Public Health Act.

The ruling says Watson’s decades-long “campaign for real milk” continued even though his constitutional challenge failed and after he was found in contempt of court for operating a raw milk operation in Chilliwack.

The ruling says Watson characterized the raw milk from the “cow share” program as “dividends from our jointly-held asset in the form of fluid milk labelled ‘Enzymatic Bath Lotion.”‘

The ruling says Watson filed another constitutional challenge in April 2024, trying to restrain “the government from enforcing the Public Health Act in respect of raw milk,” but Veenstra’s ruling says his latest claims were barred because of the earlier rulings in 2011 and 2013.

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