GRAND FALLS, N.B. - A New Brunswick Tory MP is defending Ottawa's role in securing the release of a farmer who spent more than a year in a Lebanese jail on accusations he exported rotten potatoes.
Mike Allen says the federal government deserves more credit in helping facilitate the release of Henk Tepper, who returned to Canada last weekend.
Allen says allegations that the government wasn't doing all it could to help Tepper are an insult to the work of consular officials.
"The comments that the government hasn't done anything I think are kind of a slap to ... the professional consular people that we have working around the world," Allen said Thursday.
"They do a tremendous job and they do it in the face of some very tough situations in these other countries."
Earlier this week, Tepper's sister and legal team held a news conference during which they said the government did not do enough to have Tepper return home.
Tepper returned to Canada on Saturday after being held in custody in Beirut since March 23 of last year.
He was detained on an international arrest warrant on allegations he exported rotten potatoes to Algeria in 2007 and forged export documents.
Tepper was arrested in Lebanon when he travelled to the Middle East on an agricultural trade mission to promote seed potatoes from Atlantic Canada.
