Yes, it was widely publicized two years ago when the Prime Minister first stated his intention, and then also in October when he made it final that he would not attend. At the actual Commonwealth summit, it was David Cameron who stole the show for the reasons I touched on earlier.
I will say this. Whatever my views or your views are on the decision to boycott, I have yet to meet a member of Sri Lankan civil society who didn't welcome it, regardless of whether they thought it was done for domestic political reasons. Frankly, they wouldn't care. What they wanted was a very powerful protest signal sent to the Sri Lankan government, and they felt that Stephen Harper did that, so they welcomed it.
In June when I was in Sri Lanka, I attended a civil society conference and made a point of asking people what they thought about thePrime Minister saying that he'd be unlikely to come. Should he come to the Commonwealth Summit? I didn't find a single one saying he should come. Some answers were nuanced, but essentially the almost unanimous view was that it was a good idea to boycott the meeting.