Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Montarville for his excellent speech. It was very interesting.
My colleague reiterated the importance of human rights. He also mentioned that it has been one year today since Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor were detained in China. It is a sad anniversary. He also mentioned that the Liberal government waited eight months to appoint an ambassador to China, a key diplomatic post to facilitate the release of these two Canadians.
As my colleague has good knowledge of foreign affairs, I would like to ask his opinion and whether he recalls there ever being a time when a government waited that long during a diplomatic crisis to appoint an ambassador to a country as important as China.