Sure. This is what happened. Last summer, I got a message from someone who was on the special China task force that had been set up to deal with the crisis. It's someone I had met with before, an old colleague. We exchanged ideas, and the message was, “Can we talk again?” I'm always happy to do that. I can tell them what I'm thinking and they can bounce ideas off me, because I spent five years running the branch that they're in. I am always happy to do that.
On the day of the call, I got a message saying, “Oh, Paul Thoppil is joining the call.” It was a little odd, but it was okay. At the start, Paul was very effusive, saying that he was running the branch, that he knew that I had run it in the past, and how honoured he was. It was even a little over the top, but I got a sense that the conversation was about to change. It wasn't going to be an exchange of ideas.
He then said, “Before you speak to the media, you should feel free to check your ideas with us and find out what we think.” I got a little mad just because of the way it was expressed, and I said, “Paul, what's the issue? Who asked you to call me?” He said that the issue was with comments I had made about the travel advisory and that the people in PMO were not happy. That's what happened.
I said, “Paul, I'm not going to do that. I'm happy to exchange ideas with you guys, but I'm not going to feel constrained to call you. I'm a private citizen now.” I said that because I think I know what the objective was. It's to kind of intimidate you before you put pen to paper.
So that's what happened. I was disturbed by it, and I've remained concerned. Paul, in his testimony, said that he calls people to compare notes and exchange ideas. That wasn't the nature of our conversation.