Potato Shipment to Algeria triggers multiple lawsuits

A shipment of potatoes that landed a New Brunswick potato farmer behind bars in Lebanon has launched a complicated legal action involving three Canadian provinces.

That lawsuit — which includes Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Quebec — is still making its way through the courts.

Henk Tepper of Tobique Farms in Drummond, New Brunswick, was picked up on March 23 after being red-flagged by Interpol, over a potato shipment he made four years ago.

Tepper organized the shipment of potatoes to Algeria back in 2007. The potatoes came from P.E.I. and Quebec, and they were cleared to leave from P.E.I. However Algeria turned them away because of what they said was bacteria ring rot. Tepper, 44, is accused of altering the documents that went with the potato shipment.

Tobique Farms is suing the groups involved in testing the potatoes , according to court papers. It claims the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the P.E.I. Potato Quality Institute, along with a lab in Quebec, didn't do enough to make sure the testing was done properly and in a timely way.

A small portion of the shipment was from Quebec, but most of the potatoes were shipped through a P.E.I. company, called Red Isle Produce.

Red Isle has filed a $1 million lawsuit against Tobique Farms for failing to pay for the potatoes it bought.

The P.E.I. company says it did everything by the book and the ring rot was in the Quebec portion of the shipment. That is disputed by the Quebec company involved.

Publicity over this incident prompted Algeria to stop importing any Canadian potatoes, a ban that remains in place.

The various parties in these lawsuits, have been meeting over the past three years. No trial dates have been set yet.