The war against veganism has begun

Well, the backlash against veganism seems to have started in earnest. There were no fewer than three (rather whiny) articles in a two-page centre-spread in the Globe and Mail this weekend, mainly objecting to the holier-than-thou "virtue signalling" of the vegan movement (if movement it be). And now there is official action against the use of the word "cheese" by vegan cheese-alternative manufacturers.
Blue Heron, a small Vancouver vegan cheese store (there, I said it!) has been prohibited from using the word "cheese" to market its products, after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), which apparently is also responsible for such nomenclature issues, received an anonymous complaint. Now, you can imagine where that complaint came from, can't you? (and one complaint?). Canada-wide the CFIA received all of 415 dairy product complaints of this kind in 2017-8, up from 294 in 2013-4, hardly a visceral groundswell of opinion, I wouldn't have thought, and well within the possibility that this is the work of dairy employees and their families. Not that I am a conspiracy theorist...
Of course, there are lots of other companies out there producing similar vegan cheese products (said it again!) and not being regulated, although this may be the opening salvo in an upcoming war. For now, Blue Heron, and others, are just politely asking exactly what the rules are, as that seems far from clear. Most of the rules that do apply date from the 80s and 90s, before good quality vegan cheese even existed. Apparently, Bkue Heron has also been told that it can't use hyphenated explanatory descriptors like "dairy-free" or "plant-based" along with the word "cheese" (so can they use them without hypens?), nor can they use sound-alike phonetic mis-spellings like "cheeze" or "cheez" (so where does that leave Cheez Whiz, which is actually less like cheese than many vegan products?). Blue Heron, specifically, doesn't even use the word "cheese" on its labels, only in its website description, so why they were singled out is anyone's guess. But it's no secret that the dairy industry is feeling a bit precarious at the moment, so the odds are that they are behind it somewhere.
It's all very confusing and vaguely ridiculous. I suppose "vegan jerky" and "chick-un" are for the chop next. The war against veganism has begun.