Last week, agriculture ministers from across the country were in P.E.I. for a federal-provincial-territorial meeting.

They discussed several topics including bee health, weather conditions, and transportation systems across the country, but one of the big talking points at the concluding press conference was food and farm tampering. The federal government recently announced funding to install metal detectors to help find any foreign objects in potatoes, after metal sewing needles were found inside potatoes harvested in P.E.I.

Federal agriculture minister, Gerry Ritz, calls acts of food-tampering despicable and deplorable, and says those convicted of tampering with food will face a minimum $500,000 fine and up to 18 months in jail for a first-time offence.

"The farmers being attacked are the victims here," Ritz says. "It's just unconscienable that anyone in a democractic country like Canada, with the multicplicity of food stuff that we have, and the care and attention our farmers and processors take to put it on people's tables here and abroad, could be attacked in this way. I know the RCMP are involved, and we look forward to them finding these scoundrels and throwing the full force of the law at them."

Supply management concerns also came up in the press conference, and while Ritz says the federal government has reflected those concerns in their negotiations, he also says they won't be negotiating it publicly.