Canada’s ambassador to Beijing has just made a discreet visit to a different world capital in the aftermath of last week’s high-profile release of prisoners.

Dominic Barton was at the White House on Friday for a meeting with American officials and Canada’s U.S. ambassador Kirsten Hillman. The Washington meeting was not publicly announced. 

But when a CBC News crew outside the White House asked Barton about his trip, he cited two objectives for the meeting with officials in the Indo-Pacific section of the U.S. National Security Council.

The first was to thank the Biden administration for its help securing the release of Michael Spavor