SAINT JOHN, N.B. - A lawyer for a New Brunswick potato farmer who has been held for months in a Lebanese jail says Ottawa should help his client see a doctor for a mental health assessment.

James Mockler travelled to Beirut last week to visit Henk Tepper in jail and says the 44-year-old farmer from Drummond had difficulty answering some of his questions and stared blankly ahead when they met on July 12.

Tepper has been detained since March 23 under an international arrest warrant over allegations that some potatoes he exported to Algeria were rotten.

Mockler said Tepper is usually a dynamic and energetic person used to operating his large farm, but now he is sleeping for much of the day.

He said he noticed a change in his client's mental health during the most recent visit compared to a trip two weeks earlier.

"I have a gut feeling. It's like there was nothing behind his eyes and he just stared," Mockler said in a telephone interview.

"That frightened me."

He said the embassy should approach a Lebanese judge to ask that his client be shifted to a hospital for assessments of his physical and mental health.

"We would hope they (the embassy) would be of some assistance in removing Mr. Tepper from his prison and place him in a Lebanese hospital for a medical assessment," he said.

"Their response was we're not going to get involved in that."

A Foreign Affairs Department spokeswoman says the government is monitoring Tepper's health and welfare, and consular officials from the Canadian embassy are maintaining regular contact with him.

"Canadian officials in Lebanon have been actively providing consular assistance and support to Mr. Tepper since his arrest, including consular visits as well as maintaining regular contact with Mr. Tepper's lawyer in Lebanon," Aliya Mawani wrote in an email.

She didn't comment on whether the embassy will ask for Tepper to be assessed by a doctor, but forwarded a link to the department's website, which describes services that embassies provide to Canadians imprisoned abroad.

The site says consular officials should "make every effort to ensure you receive adequate nutrition and medical and dental care."

Mockler said the financial uncertainty over the future of his farm has heightened Tepper's anxiety.

In court proceedings this week in Edmundston, a judge reserved decision on whether to extend creditor protection on the 200 hectares in northwestern New Brunswick until Oct. 18.

Mockler had asked the court to continue to protect the farm from being petitioned into bankruptcy by creditors so that Tepper's family can harvest their potato crop and pay its expenses.

He said the judge's decision is expected on or before July 29.