Finance Committee on Oct. 10th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

I call this meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 158 of the Standing Committee on Finance.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. All witnesses have completed the required connection test in advance of the meeting.

I'd like to remind participants of the following points. Please wait until I recognize you by name. All comments should be addressed through the chair. Members, please raise your hand if you wish to speak, whether participating in person or via Zoom. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can.

Pursuant to Standing Order 83.1 and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, September 26, the committee is resuming its study on the pre-budget consultations in advance of the 2025 budget.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses.

With us today, we have, from the Canadian Credit Union Association, its vice president of government relations, Michael Hatch. From the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, we have its president, Linda Silas. From the Canadian Teachers' Federation, we have Heidi Yetman, president. From the Convenience Industry Council of Canada, we have president and chief executive officer, Anne Kothawala, joining us via video conference. From the Native Child and Family Services of Toronto, we have interim director of governance and strategy, Melissa Hamonic. From Unifor, we have the national representative of the research department, Simon Lavigne, and the Quebec director, Daniel Cloutier.

With that, we are going to open it up to the witnesses' opening remarks. You'll have up to five minutes to deliver those remarks before we move into members' questions. We are going to start—

[Rachel Bendayan, Liberal, Outremont, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

Are all the witnesses who are participating in the meeting by video conference connected?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay, we'll work on that to make sure we get the screens up. We want to see everybody as they deliver their remarks.

Thank you, Ms. Bendayan.

With that, we will start with Michael Hatch, please.

[Michael Hatch, Vice President, Government Relations, Canadian Credit Union Association]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Honourable members, thank you for inviting me to speak today. My name is Michael Hatch. I am the vice president of government relations at the Canadian Credit Union Association.

Canada's credit unions and caisses populaires manage almost $684 billion worth of assets and serve over 11 million people, so that's more than one in four Canadians. With more than 2,000 credit union locations, we are the only financial institution with a physical presence in around 350 communities in almost every part of this country. Credit unions and regional centrals employ over 30,000 individuals and provide full-service financial solutions while being fully Canadian owned.

We are pleased to appear today as part of this committee’s pre-budget hearings in advance of the 2025 federal budget.

As this committee and the government look for concrete policy options to address the cost of living challenge, there is a single word that should be constantly on your minds: competition. The most effective way the government can address high costs is to encourage competition in the sectors that impact Canadian households.

Credit unions, as most of you will know, provide some of the only real competition that exists in financial services in this country. The sector is dominated by a small number of massive banks, and we all know who they are.

Normally, mergers and consolidation are associated with decreased competition. In our sector, the opposite is true. Credit unions have been consolidating for decades, and this trend will continue. Far from reducing competition, consolidation has allowed the credit union sector to continue to provide the only competition that exists for the large banks.

This year’s budget has increased the merger scrutiny powers of the Competition Bureau. It is our hope that a more robust merger review process will not hinder the further consolidation that will be required in the years to come in the credit union sector. Early evidence from the bureau suggests that its enhanced powers will pose a challenge to the continued consolidation that needs to take place in our sector if we are going to be able to continue providing, again, the only competition that exists for Canadians' wallets.

We urge members of this committee and all parliamentarians to pursue a legislative regime that allows credit union consolidation to continue, as this is consistent, as I mentioned, with enhanced competition in Canadian financial services.

Far too often, policy coming out of Ottawa towards our sector takes into account the needs, scale and structure of the large banks. This has had very negative impacts on the credit union sector over the years. The most recent example of this—and I'd be happy to get into more detail in the Q and A—is the recently announced carbon rebate. There will be $2.5 billion—that's serious dollars—going out in the next month couple of months to 600,000 small businesses across Canada. The co-operative sector—credit unions included—is completely excluded from this program, even though including us in it would have zero cost and would not impact the payments to those 600,000 businesses in a material way. This is an easy problem to solve. We urge this committee to address this inequity at the earliest possible opportunity, ideally in next year's budget, or even possibly in the fall economic statement to come.

There are many other examples, which I would be happy to discuss in the Q and A period, but I know we're pressed for time, and I want to give the floor to my fellow witnesses. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Hatch. I'm sure there will be many questions.

Now we're going to hear from the Canadian Federation of Nurses and its president, Linda Silas, please.

[Linda Silas, President, Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Canadian Federation of Nurses Union, CFNU, is the largest nursing organization in Canada, representing over 250,000 frontline nurses and nursing students in every sector of health care.

Everyone in Canada knows that our health care system is very challenged. We would say it's in crisis.

The most serious challenge is the nursing shortage. According to a recent report from StatCan, there are 42,000 nursing vacancies. We have fewer than 500,000 nurses in this country. Beyond this, the working conditions of nurses are horrendous.

In our original submission, we discussed the government moving forward with the pharmacare program. Due to the time constraint and the role of this committee to advise the minister, we're going to focus on the nursing shortage.

Our first recommendation is to create a patient bill of rights. Because the condition of work is the condition of care, the bill should have three components.

First is a nurse-patient ratio, which refers to the number of patients assigned to a nurse. These ratios are an international practice and have demonstrated benefits in reducing the nursing workload, especially in the acute care sector. In California and Australia, we see a nurse-patient ratio with higher job satisfaction and better outcomes for patients. British Columbia and Nova Scotia have committed to this. Now we need to move it forward.

Second is to limit consecutive working hours for nurses. Currently, there's no regulation limiting how many hours nurses can work in a week. Fatigue is a well-known safety risk. Other industries with critical safety concerns have established regulations for work hours. For example, rail operators are restricted to 12 hours. Nurses can work double shifts up to 24 hours and nobody questions it.

Third is enforcing long-term care standards. The Government of Canada established long-term care standards. One example is to guarantee our seniors 4.5 hours of direct care. That brings seniors safety, but the standards need to be enforceable.

Our second recommendation is to call for a $1-billion fund to enact a nursing retention tool kit. This fund would enable provinces, territories, municipalities and local health authorities to work on nurse and health care worker retention through the tool kit recommendation. There are other actions this government can take to help students and young nurses, such as developing paid preceptorship and mentorship programs, as already exist in Australia.

We need to work toward phasing out the use of private, for-profit staffing agencies, which are sapping billions of dollars from our public sector. They are completely unregulated. Research shows that these agencies create staff turnover, deterioration of quality of care, and inequities in working conditions and salaries, and they destabilize our health care teams.

We also propose tax incentives for nurses, such as a $5,000 Canadian nurse tax credit modelled after the volunteer firefighter tax credit, which would help retain nurses.

Finally, Canada needs a health human resource strategy that will reduce the risk of future shortages in health care. I've been doing this job for 21 years and this is the third time I've appeared at different government committees talking about different waves of nursing shortages. We need to do better.

Nurses are asking you to fund Health Canada so we can include a patient bill of rights and retention and recruitment efforts in your recommendation to the Minister of Finance.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you for that. Thank you for the work that nurses do across our country. It's really amazing.

Now we're going to hear from the Canadian Teachers' Federation president, Heidi Yetman.

[Heidi Yetman, President, Canadian Teachers' Federation]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Heidi Yetman. I'm the president of the Canadian Teachers' Federation. I represent over 365,000 public sector teachers and educators across Canada.

The federation is an organization that puts teachers and social justice at the core of its existence. We feel passionately about creating a more equitable and just society, and for these reasons, the federation is seeking transformative social change in budget 2025.

In our pre-budget submission, the federation has four key issues that we would like addressed in budget 2025.

First, as I've said before at this committee, we'd like to see the fantastic work being done with the Canadian school food program continued. We have been working closely with our member organizations and the Coalition for Healthy School Food. We've also been consulting with the Government of Canada and monitoring progress on agreements with the provinces. We really appreciate the investment in a national school food program, and we hope to see the funding continued and possibly extended.

Next, the federation is asking for supports for school boards to deal with the influx of new migrants to Canada and those young newcomers who are entering the K-to-12 public education system. Canada has undergone significant demographic changes and welcomed a significant number of new immigrants and families to Canada, and that's a good thing. While education funding is the purview of the provinces, Canada regularly funds official language supports. We need to see proportional official language education funding, both in English and French, to deal with the influx of newcomers to Canada. Teachers and education workers in Canada are already dealing with austerity measures across the board, and we would like to see the federal government step in to address this severe underfunding in a way that respects provincial jurisdiction while also appealing to the federal government's responsibility to ensure that everyone in Canada has the ability to communicate in one of our official languages.

Third, the federation is asking the federal government to help casual teachers, or substitute teachers, with the cost of living. The teaching profession is in the midst of a retention and recruitment crisis, as I've said before at this committee, and having teachers stay in or enter the profession is becoming more and more difficult for a myriad of reasons. Both the federation and the Canadian Labour Congress have resolutions seeking travel deductions for casual teachers. In budget 2025, we would like to see the Government of Canada and the Canada Revenue Agency allow for casual teachers to deduct travel expenses when they're travelling to work.

Finally, I arrive at our most ambitious ask. By the way, today, October 10, is World Mental Health Day; I see some of you wearing green ribbons. We're asking the federal government to commit to permanent and ongoing funding for mental health services under the Canada mental health transfer.

I want to thank the federal government for their budget 2024 investment in youth mental health, but I believe we can and should do more. Recently, the federation partnered with the Canadian Mental Health Association to pilot support for in-school mental health supports for teachers. This project has already shown us that teachers badly need mental health support. Did you know that 39% of Ontario high school students indicate moderate to serious levels of psychological distress?

Mental health remains a significant concern for our members and contributes to the retention and recruitment crisis facing public education workers. It's an ongoing issue impacting the well-being and working conditions of teachers, education workers, students and their families. The Liberal Party of Canada's campaign platform committed to permanent ongoing funding for mental health through the creation of the mental health transfer, so we'd like to see that commitment become a reality and really change the lives of teachers, education workers, youth and families living in Canada.

Thank you, and I look forward to hearing your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, President Yetman. You're no stranger to this committee. You were here in September on capital gains, and now you're here on our pre-budget consultation. We thank you for your advocacy for teachers and for mental health.

Now we will hear from the Convenience Industry Council of Canada and its president, Anne Kothawala, please.

[Anne Kothawala, President and Chief Executive Officer, Convenience Industry Council of Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee for hearing from local corner stores as part of your pre-budget consultation.

On behalf of Canada's 22,000 convenience stores, which employ 188,000 people in communities right across the country, we are pleased to speak with you about issues facing our industry and provide you with three recommendations that would support local stores and workers as part of budget 2025.

We recommend the removal of credit card interchange fees on the tax portion of sales made by credit card and the allocation of additional federal funding to address the sale of illegal contraband tobacco, and reinstating the ability for our stores to sell nicotine replacement therapies to adult consumers. Punishing credit card interchange fees, proliferation of contraband tobacco and illogical restrictions on products sold in our stores have a direct impact on our businesses, our workers and Canadian communities. Every week 1.5 stores are closing their doors in Canada, the majority of which are in rural and remote communities. This is a major problem for the 60% of Canadians who say convenience stores are important to meeting their needs.

The challenges facing convenience stores are unique. We collect more taxes than any other retail sector due to the mix of highly taxed products that we retail, including fuel and tobacco. In 2023, our members collected more than $24 billion in tax, $11.42 billion for the federal government alone. We are heavily taxed and also heavily regulated. Stores face dozens and dozens of red-tape barriers to opening and operating stores, which have a direct cost on business and curb interest in investment and growth.

These existing pressures are compounded by the current approach to credit card fees and contraband tobacco.

On credit card fees, our stores face a double whammy. We pay the interchange fee both on the products sold and on the taxes applied to these products. The result is our stores are spending tens of thousands of dollars per year per store simply on fees on just the tax portion of the sales made by credit card. Using an illustrative example of a gas purchase in Nova Scotia, if credit card fees on the tax portion of a $60 gas purchase were to be addressed, merchants would save about 50%, money that could be invested in our stores and workers and help keep prices competitive. Regrettably, our stores do not qualify for the new small business interchange rate, which benefits really only micro-businesses, and a promise from the current government to eliminate this swipe fee from the tax portion of transactions made in 2019 hasn't materialized. We don't buy the argument that it isn't possible to do. Surely there is a solution. An easy one would be a tax credit for these retailers that are facing excessive costs to collect taxes for government.

If we are going to compete with big-box stores and remain viable, relief on credit card fees is essential.

Rural crime and organized criminal activity are also threatening our stores and communities. Committee members may have seen news on Monday that four of our member store locations in Winnipeg will close their doors due to rising crime at these locations. You can understand our frustration to see this happen when the federal government takes no action on the issue of illegal tobacco, even though it directly undermines our law-abiding businesses. It is shameful that our stores are competing with organized criminals. They go unpunished, while we are forced to shutter our doors.

Inaction on contraband tobacco isn't just about tax collection, it is about public safety. Contraband tobacco seizures are often accompanied by the seizure of illicit drugs and firearms. We need to be more deliberate in targeting contraband and illicit tobacco, both with more powers for law enforcement and by addressing the online growing illicit market.

I can speak to more specific recommendations during the Q and A if desired.

Our final recommendation is to return nicotine replacement therapies, like nicotine pouches, to convenience stores. Canada's convenience store industry has been entrusted for decades to sell age-restricted products to adult consumers, namely lottery, tobacco, vaping products and in some provinces alcohol.

We have a strong record of success in preventing youth access to age-restricted products. The decision to remove these products from our stores was without merit, and carries significant consequences for adult consumers and legal retailers. These products should be returned to our shelves so that adult consumers can easily make the choice to choose a reduced-risk product at the same place they purchase their tobacco.

Our stores are not here seeking a handout, but seeking to address punishing fees and taxes, and criminal activity. Allowing our businesses to responsibly sell legal products can go a long way to ensuring we remain cornerstones in Canadian communities.

I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Ms. Kothawala.

I'm sure there will be many questions.

Now we are going to hear from Native Child and Family Services of Toronto, and Ms. Hamonic, please.

[Melissa Hamonic, Interim Director, Governance and Strategy, Native Child and Family Services of Toronto]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Witness spoke in Michif]

[English]

I just introduced myself in Michif, my maternal language.

Good afternoon, committee members, and thank you for the invitation to participate in your pre-budget consultations this year.

I'm the director of governance and strategy at Native Child and Family Services of Toronto. We're an urban indigenous agency providing a wide range of services to indigenous children and families in the greater Toronto area. The programming we offer families is designed around a holistic, culturally grounded service model, which has allowed us to effectively support Toronto's indigenous community since 1986. After almost 40 years, Native Child has come a long way and has grown considerably. Today we serve, through 164 programs, over 8,000 community members in the region, and to do this work we rely on funding from the Government of Canada to deliver our programming and to maintain critical data management and administrative systems behind the scenes, ensuring principles of ownership, control, access and possession are honoured and respected.

As many members of this committee are aware, the majority of indigenous people in Canada, over 64.5%, live off reserve or outside of their communities, and many are located in urban environments like Toronto. The children and families we serve reflect this reality. We're proud to assist first nations, Métis and Inuit people from across Canada, working to ensure they receive the same level of support in Toronto that they would receive at home—at minimum.

These pre-budget consultations are taking place during a really pivotal time for first nations child and family service providers. The agreement in principle on long-term reform of the first nations child and family services program and Jordan's principle stands to deliver transformative levels of new funding that will enable on-reserve first nations child and family services agencies to restore their jurisdiction over child and family services on reserves. At Native Child, we understand this as an incredible moment. After decades of hard-fought advocacy and self-determination, arriving at this point, when first nations are gaining control and access to their child and family services, is huge. It's immense.

Historically, this funding was made available to first nations children and the child and family well-being agencies that serve them, including agencies like ours—urban indigenous agencies. However, in the current iteration, we understand that the final agreement for long-term reform currently up for discussion will be dedicated to on-reserve first nations children and youth only and will no longer be accessible to agencies serving first nations people living in urban centres. Native Child would like to continue to receive guaranteed annual funding from the federal government and some assurances that our existing funding will continue beyond 2026.

Native Child plays a critical role in filling service gaps for indigenous children and their families living in Toronto that cannot be addressed currently by on-reserve agencies. Without guaranteed annual funding, it will be incredibly challenging for organizations like Native Child and other urban indigenous agencies to continue providing adequate support to families in need—support that families deserve and should be receiving without any hesitation.

We fear that this funding shortfall we currently face could mean that more than 4,000 indigenous children and youth in the GTA alone may lose access to the preventative supports they rely on from our agency. Hundreds of children could be at risk of entering or remaining in the child welfare system, and we're all well aware of the potential impacts and harms of that.

The good news is that these outcomes can all be avoided through proactive investments in our agency and agencies like ours—urban indigenous agencies. Through $15 million in renewable annual funding from the Government of Canada, Native Child will have the assurance we need to continue providing the care and support so many community members rely on each and every day. This funding will allow us not only to meet the needs of today but also to plan for the needs of tomorrow with confidence. In our community, we understand that it's incredibly important to plant the seeds now for the seven generations to come, and that's why we are seeking partnership with the government today.

Budget 2025 presents an opportunity for the federal government to ensure that its commitment to decolonizing child and family services is applied universally to all agencies, regardless of where they're located. I remind folks again that 65.4% of indigenous people are living in urban centres like Toronto, so this is a critical need. An investment in Native Child is a critical step in making this commitment from the government a reality.

Thank you once again for your time and consideration. We, of course, welcome any questions you may have and look forward to more discussion. Meegwetch.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Ms. Hamonic.

Now we go to Unifor, and we have, as their speaker, Quebec director Daniel Cloutier, please.

[Daniel Cloutier, Quebec Director, Unifor]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Daniel Cloutier and I am the Quebec director of Unifor.

Unifor is Canada’s largest private sector union. We are active in over 20 industrial sectors and we represent 320,000 members in Canada, including 55,000 in Quebec.

I want to thank you for the invitation to participate in the committee's work in order to provide you with our members' views. With me is Simon Lavigne, who is the national representative in Unifor's research department.

The pre‑budget consultations cover a wide range of issues, and so I invite you to review Unifor's complete brief, which we submitted to you.

The reason I am here today is to draw your attention to a specific industrial sector that employs more than 11,000 Unifor members, including 7,000 in Quebec alone: the aerospace industry. This is a highly strategic industry that is heavily unionized. For several decades, it has given workers the chance to put down firm roots in the middle class and enjoy good, well-paid jobs.

Aerospace is a key industry for Canada. It also plays a central role in Quebec's manufacturing landscape. In fact, 14% of Quebec's total exports are connected with this industry. Montreal is the world's third-largest aerospace industry centre: 75% of Canadian aerospace R and D is done right here in the Montreal region.

Our capacity to design, manufacture and certify aircraft is a source of pride, but also a strategic asset that we have to protect. At present, when we examine the sector, we observe some concerning trends. In fact, the industry has still not recovered after the pandemic.

Current R and D spending in the aerospace industry and the contribution to gross domestic product that it generates are below 2018 levels. Over the last five years, the average wage advantage the aerospace industry has over all other sectors has dropped by almost 40%. The labour shortage and the challenge of replacing members of our work crews have not abated. Disruptions in the supply chain have not been entirely resolved. At the same time, our main competitors are adopting ambitious industrial strategies that focus on developing their own national capacity.

What has the federal government been doing all this time? It is making piecemeal investments, playing it by ear, and not working proactively to ensure that the billions of dollars we are spending on procurement will provide job security for Canadian workers.

The worst thing of all is the strategic vacuum we are seeing at present. Ottawa is sitting on the sidelines, even though it controls the basic levers: defence, air transportation, tax policy, research, innovation funds, foreign trade, diplomacy and on and on.

We are calling for a clear strategic framework to guide federal government action, to play to our strengths, to make up for our weaknesses, and to foster linkages among stakeholders. Obviously, major funding and long-term, sustained investment will have to be provided in order to put a strategy like this in place.

On September 26, in Montreal, Unifor revealed its industrial policy for the aerospace industry. We spoke with our members and to employers, training centres and academics, with the aim of developing a vision for workers themselves. It is their vision. It consists of four pillars and 27 targeted recommendations and I urge you to read it.

I would like to draw your attention to some of the potential solutions we are proposing.

First, Unifor is calling for the creation of a national industrial strategy for the aerospace industry. This kind of strategy is a mandatory path for calibrating our investments better. A policy for benefits with no industrial policy is like a car with no steering wheel.

Second, we are asking for an aerospace development council to be created that will bring together the main stakeholders in the sector, including the unions, to put the strategy into effect over time.

Third, Unifor is calling for a comprehensive increase in workforce attraction, training and adaptation funding, in partnership with the provincial governments, which have jurisdiction in these fields.

And fourth, Unifor is calling for the creation of a fund devoted exclusively to the aerospace industry, a flexible funding program, and made-to-measure tools that might even include taking an equity stake on terms that must be adhered to.

We believe that we must be proactive in order to ensure that the billions of dollars being spent will directly benefit workers in Quebec and Canada. The future of our aerospace cluster depends on being more consistent and more ambitious. That is what our members who work at Bombardier, Pratt & Whitney, CAE, Héroux‑Devtek or MDA believe. This has been talked about for decades; we believe it is time to act.

Thank you for your attention. We are at your disposal to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Cloutier.

Now, we are going to get right into questions. In this first round, each party has up to six minutes to ask questions.

We are starting with MP Chambers for the first six minutes.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Kothawala, I want to make sure that I got some numbers correct. You said your members collect about $11.4 billion in monies, which they then transmit to the federal government for taxes. Is that correct?

[Anne Kothawala]

Yes, that is correct.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Do you have a sense of how many of your members or franchise model owners are new Canadians, like first-generation Canadians or immigrants?

[Anne Kothawala]

It would be a big percentage, but we don't have the exact data.

Again, it's important to understand the structure of the convenience store industry. Whether the banner flying is Joe’s Convenience, Daisy Mart or Circle K, they are still fundamentally small businesses and they employ a lot of new Canadians, because working for a convenience store is oftentimes where they get their start.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

You collect all this money on behalf of the federal government or other governments. Are you on the finance minister's Christmas card list? I'd assume you're an important stakeholder for her.

[Anne Kothawala]

I wish I was, but indeed, we are not.

That is really our fundamental point here. We're not complaining about the fact that we're collecting these taxes. We are complaining about the fact that our members have to dig into their own pockets to collect those taxes. It seems quite perverse that you have a small business owner who is spending $20,000 to $25,000 a year of their own money in order to collect those taxes for the government because of interchange fees.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I'm curious about the nicotine pouches. Where can I now buy a nicotine pouch? If I can't buy them from one of your members, where do I have to go?

[Anne Kothawala]

You can get them at some pharmacies, but based on what we've heard from our members, there hasn't been a been a big pickup in pharmacies. What a lot of people are doing is going online, and I might add that it is where youth are going as well. A lot of the products sold online are unregulated and illegal. They include flavours that are banned in Canada. It's a bit of the Wild West, I'm afraid.

That is why we are so adamant about this issue. Based on recent data we've collected from our member stores, those stores where they had a number of adult customers coming in to buy nicotine pouches have been seeing an uptick in cigarette sales ever since nicotine pouches were removed from their stores. We can see exactly what's happened. Former adult smokers are now going back to smoking cigarettes, and that doesn't seem good for anybody.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Right, but if you just follow the money, the demand doesn't typically go away, although there's some substitution back. The government's policies are now increasing the black market or, to an extent, large pharmacy chains and actually diverting money and business away from businesses significantly owned by Canadians and immigrants.

[Anne Kothawala]

That is correct.