I wasn't in Ottawa at the time, but in Brussels.
I'm pleased to answer on behalf of the department because I keep in touch with my colleagues.
If I remember correctly, it was very soon after the arrest of the two Michaels, who were of great concern. A full and comprehensive assessment of the intentions of the Chinese authorities had not yet been conducted. So we wanted to keep all the channels open and keep all the commitments in place to make sure that we had access to all the mechanisms of dialogue [Technical difficulty—Editor] as a result of this escalation and arbitrary arrests.
At that time, we were still doing our assessments and we weren't trying to escalate, but we didn't want to back off either. That assessment was necessary to really understand the situation and to be in a better position to free the two Michaels as soon as possible through the dialogue mechanisms available to us.