Mr. Chair, I'm happy to give the broad strokes of the visit. The ambassador, of course, would be better placed to go into some of the details and nuances of it.
As I mentioned, we've been campaigning with the Chinese authorities very consistently for a visit, and his was the first in five years of any Canadian diplomat. I think for the previous ambassador it was even longer than that, perhaps in 2013.
His visit was with a group of other diplomats. It followed a previous visit of other ambassadors. Other countries' visits have also been restricted, but there was an earlier visit of diplomats and ambassadors from other countries in September. I believe this was the second visit in a relatively short succession.
He travelled primarily to Lhasa, the capital, but was also able to see parts of the surrounding prefecture of Shannan. He was able to visit the monastery, a school, and to meet with senior officials of the Tibetan government and visit some of the regions outside of Lhasa. But again, it was a highly scripted visit.
I think it did afford him the opportunity to make some personal observations, with the limited free time he had to make contact with ordinary Tibetans. That, I think, is of tremendous value for us. I think we're always concerned about, as we say, the instrumentalization of these visits—being used for propaganda purposes and these sorts of things—but you balance that out with the rare opportunity for first-hand observation, and also with the very important opportunity for Canada and its government to show Tibetans that we're there and we care, just by his presence there.