I met him on a few occasions when he was the premier's chief of staff. He called out of the blue. I had not had any contact with him since he left Queen's Park. He said he had contacts in the trucking industry. He did not want to get paid. He was not here to make money off this. He saw what was happening—as Canadians coast to coast saw what was happening—and offered to act as a go-between. I said, “Great, I will get my chief of staff to call you.” They had a number of calls. The police were informed that this approach had been made to my office.
At the end of the day, to his credit, Mr. French was able to reach an agreement that we felt was reasonable, one that would require the removal of all trucks from residential districts and that agreed not to backfill the residential areas or displace the truck convoy with other vehicles. At the end of that process, just prior to the Emergencies Act on February 14, we counted approximately 102 vehicles moved away from the residential area, which was my number one preoccupation—trying to give some peace of mind to those residents. About a third or half of those were big rigs, and the others were pickup trucks, other campers and so on.