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Prytulak to Richardson
CANOLA HARVEST trade mark infringement
Hartley Richardson
"How much annually over the past decade has James Richardson International been collecting from Canadian consumers in rabbinical surcharge, and how do these sums compare to philanthropic donations dispensed by the Richardson family over the same interval?" � Lubomyr Prytulak

01 July 2003


Hartley T. Richardson
President and CEO
James Richardson & Sons Ltd
2800 One Lombard Place
Winnipeg, MB    R3B 0X8

Hartley Richardson:

On 30-Jun-2003, I received a registered letter dated 27-Jun-2003 from your corporate counsel Jean-Marc Ruest, a copy of which I have enclosed, and which raises issues that you may be able to dispose of expeditiously.

In the first place, the Ruest letter threatens me with a law suit for infringement of the CANOLA HARVEST trade mark for having posted an image more than three years ago of CANOLA HARVEST MARGARINE packaging (along with images of the packaging of 155 other products, it should be noted), within my Internet publication Jewish Tax: What I Found In My Pantry on the Ukrainian Archive web site at www.ukar.org/tax02.html.  As I make a rule of staying scrupulously within the law, I can guarantee you instantaneous and full compliance with your request that I remove my image of the CANOLA HARVEST MARGARINE packaging just as soon as you inform me what law it is that you think I have contravened.  You mention only "trade-mark legislation," which I take to mean the Canada Trade-marks Act (TMA), and I wonder if you have read this Act, because I have, and I can tell you that it bears no relevance.  See for yourself � it's available online at laws.justice.gc.ca/en/T-13.  The entire Act addresses wrongful commercial activity, particularly someone's wrongfully appropriating a trade mark so as to promote his business, whereas I am not engaged in any business.  For example, the TMA defines infringement as follows:

    20. (1) The right of the owner of a registered trade-mark to its exclusive use shall be deemed to be infringed by a person not entitled to its use under this Act who sells, distributes or advertises wares or services in association with a confusing trade-mark or trade-name [...].

As this statement is representative of the entire TMA, it is beyond question that the TMA does not apply to me, as I do not sell or distribute or advertise any wares or any services, and I produce no confusion as to what trade mark rightfully belongs to what product.

But perhaps you can instead fault me for depreciating CANOLA HARVEST goodwill:

    22. (1) No person shall use a trade-mark registered by another person in a manner that is likely to have the effect of depreciating the value of the goodwill attaching thereto.

However, no sooner do we read the TMA definition of what it means to "use" than we recognize that the above Section 22(1) doesn't apply to me either, as I do not "use" the CANOLA HARVEST trade mark:

    4. (1) A trade-mark is deemed to be used in association with wares if, at the time of the transfer of the property in or possession of the wares, in the normal course of trade, it is marked on the wares themselves or on the packages in which they are distributed or it is in any other manner so associated with the wares that notice of the association is then given to the person to whom the property or possession is transferred.

    (2) A trade-mark is deemed to be used in association with services if it is used or displayed in the performance or advertising of those services.

    (3) A trade-mark that is marked in Canada on wares or on the packages in which they are contained is, when the wares are exported from Canada, deemed to be used in Canada in association with those wares.

And neither are you in a position to complain that even though trade-mark legislation is irrelevant, I nevertheless depreciate CANOLA HARVEST goodwill.  All I do is disclose that the "COR" on CANOLA HARVEST packaging stands for "COUNCIL OF ORTHODOX RABBIS," and you will not come to court to confess that you know that disclosing this information elicits consumer aversion.

And neither am I able to comprehend the Ruest threat that James Richardson International will be "seeking an order of damages."  What damages?  The only damages you could conceivably claim would be from consumers avoiding CANOLA HARVEST products because they wished to avoid paying the rabbinical surcharge which is part of their price.  But if your position is that consumers prefer kosher products, then elementary logic obligates you to expect that my disclosing that any CANOLA HARVEST product is kosher-certified will enhance product goodwill and increase sales � in which haystack cannot readily be found any needle of damages.

My writing on the subject of kosher certification disseminates information which is in the public interest.  My presenting images of product packaging, instead of merely alluding to the product name without any image, fortifies consumer memory of which products are kosher certified, and teaches where on the packaging the kosher-certification information is to be found, and precisely what it looks like.  Thus, the image of the packaging, as exemplified below, is instructive and educational and contributes toward raising consumer awareness of issues having profound economic and political implications:



Although I look with disapproval upon anyone undertaking frivolous and vexatious litigation, especially when it is directed at me, I have to admit that it can bring the substantial benefit of exposing and publicizing the wrong thinking and malevolent motives of the plaintiff.  In your case, the benefit of your litigation would be the attendant publicity which would persuade Canadian consumers in increasing numbers to boycott James Richardson International products until such time as you were able to provide satisfactory answers to at least the following eleven questions:

  1. The CANOLA HARVEST label above claims that your canola oil is "100% pure," "cholesterol free," and with "no additives or preservatives."  Consumers under the impression that a pure vegetable product is exempt from kosher certification might wish to be informed how James Richardson International came to be persuaded to have its canola oil kosher-certified, and whether some rabbinical opinion would hold that such certification was groundless and purposeless, as groundless and purposeless as they have deemed the certification of olive oil to be, and whether some kashruth scholars would conclude that your paying for canola oil to be kosher-certified was a scam, and whether some among these scholars might conclude that it was another in a long list of kosher-related scams.

    My putting this question to you is prompted not only by my wondering how a pure vegetable product can require kosher certification, and not only by my further wondering how it is possible that salt and sugar and pepper and coffee and tea and vinegar and drinking water and aluminum foil and plastic bags and food-wrap film and laundry detergent and laundry bleach are today being kosher-certified, and not only by my standing aghast at the proposal by some that steel be kosher-certified, but is also encouraged by my observation that kashruth scholars find it impossible to write about kosher certification without heavy reliance on the words corruption and fraud, as exemplified in the two kashruth books in my possession bearing the titles The Book of Kashruth: A Treasury of Facts & Frauds (by Seymour E. Freedman, 1970) and Fraud, Corruption, and Holiness: The Controversy Over the Supervision of the Jewish Dietary Practice in New York (by Harold P. Gastwirt, 1974).

    My first question to you, in short, is whether your kosher-certifying canola oil is part of a conspiracy to defraud the public, and is a manifestation of the corruption of James Richardson International.

  2. If there is no element of concealment in James Richardson International kosher certification of its products, then why does JRI not expand the mysterious "COR" on its packaging to the informative "COUNCIL OF ORTHODOX RABBIS" of which it is the acronym?

  3. Can Safeway-brand canola oil displaying the same "COR 67" that CANOLA HARVEST displays be taken to mean that Safeway canola oil is really a JRI product?  If so, then this might imply that JRI pre-pays the kosher-certification fee for all the canola oil it produces, removing from secondary distributors whom JRI supplies the option of selling a kosher-free product.

  4. How much annually over the past decade has James Richardson International been collecting from Canadian consumers in rabbinical surcharge, and how do these sums compare to philanthropic donations dispensed by the Richardson family over the same interval?

  5. Does kosher certification violate restraint-of-trade laws by coercing enterprises to kosher-certify under threat of boycott, and if so then is not JRI a leading participant in activity which is both illegal and damaging to the Canadian economy?

  6. Most of the meat that comes from Jewish ritual slaughter is sold to non-Jews without its origin being disclosed.  Some Canadian consumers might object to this practice for one or more of the following reasons:
    • they do not wish to support Jewish ritual slaughter because of its excessive cruelty;
    • they do not wish any portion of their food dollars going to the support of religion, particularly a religion of which they may not be members; and
    • they may fear that among the reasons for a ritual slaughterer rejecting meat for distribution to the kosher market, and sending it out unidentified into the non-kosher market, is that he suspected it of being contaminated or diseased.
    Do you advocate that Canadian consumers be informed when their meat originates from Jewish ritual slaughter, or are you for continuing the present practice of selling them ritual-slaughtered meat without telling them where it comes from?

  7. As can be verified at www.ukar.org/tax.html, my repeated queries seeking information concerning kosher certification have gone unanswered, as exemplified in two of my letters to Israel Asper:
    If JRI agrees that stonewalling requests for information concerning kosher certification is proper, then this would seem to be at variance with the JRI Operating Philosophy expressed in the James Richardson 1857 statement that "Our goal is to be the kind of business organization in which people can place their trust."

  8. Do you agree that if James Richardson International labels any product as kosher, then the consumer has a right to know precisely how preparation of the product has been altered to qualify it for kosher certification?  If you do agree that the consumer has this right, then you would seem to be under some obligation to disclose where you have made such information available.

  9. For the sin of having convinced government authorities to abolish taxes on kosher meat and sabbath candles which were burdensome to poor Jews but were a source of revenue for a handful of Jewish notables, Rabbi Avraham Cohen was poisoned along with his young daughter on 06-Sep-1848 in Lviv, which brings to mind today the hypothesis that the kosher tax may be less a Jewish tax, as it at first glance may appear to be, than a tax imposed by a handful of Jewish notables, with Jews generally neither participating nor benefitting, but rather only bearing the burden of increased product cost together with the heightened anti-Jewish feeling that is incited by the tax.  For the purpose of exculpating the Jewish people generally, and of placing the blame more selectively on the few who deserve it, do you not think that it is important to fully disclose into exactly whose pockets the kosher tax revenues flow, and what further distribution is made of these revenues, if any?

  10. If the kosher surcharge, as it is imposed today, is responsible for inciting some anti-Jewish feeling, and if anti-Jewish feeling of whatever origin is construed by some as anti-Semitism, then does not James Richardson International bear responsibility for helping to incite anti-Semitism, and would not JRI's removing its kosher surcharge from at least its canola oil contribute toward eradicating one of the causes of anti-Semitism?

  11. As your threatened law suit is unsupported by either legislation or precedent, and as your damages are imaginary, how do you refute the appearance that you are employing your vast wealth and power to impose the punishment of sham litigation upon a consumer who has dared to make enquiries concerning the covert taxation of mainly the food purchases of the entire population to enrich a handful of notables within a minority religion?

As the above questions are of broad interest, I look forward to publishing your answers to them over the duration of your holding � by means of your litigation � my, and the world's, attention to the topic of James Richardson International participation in the kosher scam.




Lubomyr Prytulak

cc:
Curt Vossen
President
James Richardson International
2800 One Lombard Place
Winnipeg, MB   R3B 0X8

Jean-Marc Ruest
Corporate Counsel and Director, Industry Relations
Legal Department
2800 One Lombard Place
Winnipeg, MB   R3B 0X8

Israel Asper
Executive Chairman
CanWest Global Communications Corp
3100 TD Centre, 201 Portage Avenue
Winnipeg MB   R3B 3L7
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